A Little shop of Horrors

2006-08-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present Augie March.

The new band on radio blog. You may have never heard of them. Neither had I . But not long ago I ran into them at a smoky bar on a chilly night out in the port city of Fremantle. A couple of fairly ordinary guys, looking slightly too old to be pop stars took the stage and broke out into song....

"Now should you expect to see something that you hadn't seen in somebody you've known since you were sixteen,
If love is a bolt from the blue then what is a bolt but a glorified screw,
And that doesn't hold nothing together.

Far from these nonsense bars and their nowhere music,
it's making me sick and I know it's making you sick,
there's nothing there it's like eating air,
it's like drinking gin with nothing else in and that doesn't hold me together...

And for one crowded hour you were the only one in the room,
I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom,
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple june,
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin."

And I knew it was something special.. there was this electricity in the cold air... there was poetry and beauty and humidifying sensuality...

So here is their rather strangely titled album.... "Moo you bloody choir"... but the music is just fantastic... there is something different about this band... they are not pop... they are not rock... they are not fake... they sound like they are from a different time...a time I like a great deal... a lot of heavy influences from "the time".... from Dylan to Sigur Ros to Dickens... watch for it.... you'll see it...

They are honest, original and intellectual. Songs are great, most stand out from each other, most of them you can listen to repeatedly..... I play one crowded hour atleast 5 times a day...

Try this little aussie venture. I think you'll like it.

2006-08-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

I always wondered where one drew the line. Between Indian and NRI. I always figured it was the day I threw out my last "Gopal" underwear and convereted in entirety to Jockey (ot its cheap chinese equivalent).

But I was wrong. It was actually today. When I spent $11.50 to watch a Karan Johar movie in Perth.

For the first time ever I saw a movie hall in Perth filled to capacity. First time I have seen anything in Perth filled to capacity (barring car parks). Indians stacked in unshapely rows from the carpets to the rafters. Simultaneously munching away on copious amounts of popcorn and ice cream. What a sight. And the sound. People talking contantly. Answering cell phones. Several people turned around suddenly to hold a conversation with the Indian they were sharing their armrest with, only to realise they didn't speak each others language. So they would revert back to english. But suddenly without the accent! Caught off guard by people off their own race they suddenly felt no urge to pronounce a's as I's.

The movie was nothing to write home about. So I won't. The usual fare of of love and cheating and random acts of disco dancing. For some reason all set in New York. I have no idea why New York was important to the whole plot. And ofcourse there was no insight whatsoever into NRI lives. No background or explanantion as to what each person does, which allows them to afford such Donald-Trump-exorbitant lifestyles. But... I shouldn't complain. We are like that only. Was I supposed to expect something different? Guess not... maybe the NRI in me did... shame on him...
Anyway. I have had this irritation in my left eye for the last couple of days. Somethings nesting there for sure. From time to time it acts up and my left eye starts watering profusely. The right eye tends to give it some company. On top of that, I have a little anatomical quirk, which makes tears well up in my eyes when I yawn. Normally it's no big deal. But today, the combination of both made quite a scene today after the movie. As we were all leaving people stopped and turned to stare at me.

They all probably thought I was rather moved by Shah Rukh Khan's, Dr. House impersonation...

2006-08-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today was a funny day....
Has been outrageously windy for some reason. St. Georges Terrace is the city's central road. Perth's Dalhousie. Massive glass and steel structures on both sides create some sort of bizarre localised weather system. Pretty windy on normal days. Today it was a miniature hurricane of sorts. Like the wind of the east tha blew away all the mean nannies in Mary Poppins. The pretty office goers. Oh so mighty in their long coats and black skirts. Almost had their clothes torn off them. All their Porsches and mobile phones could not save them from being denuded and enbarassed repeaedly by a force of nature... while worthless PhD students on extended lunch breaks looked on.

It was fun driving around at 8pm as the storm hit its peak. The usually deserted streets of Perth were emptier stil. At times I was the only car on the road. Driving way over the limit than I would normally dare. Knowing that cops had better sense and were probably home and cameras (if any) had long been knocked over. It was a fantastic feeling. Driving around at recklessly, feeling the car rock sidewards with a gust of wind, dodging debris, running over branches. For a minute you could pretend you were living "twister.

And Indian came to Perth today. Was told he was a pure vegetarian. A modest, meek, straight arrow, poster boy of the VHP type. Took for his first rite of passage. Shopping. First thing he asks "where can I get some bacon?" Hmm... Then I dissuade him from buying Brussel Sprouts and Lasagna Sheets. Finally, after long searching, he asks "is alcohol cheap here."
Looking for alcohol in the supermarket.

Something tells me he will do just fine.

2006-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Ok.... of all my recent run-ins with bloggers.... bini's is probably the weirdest...
I saw her in elgin forum one day... walking past several times... but she was with friends... and she didn't give me a second glance (as can be expected)... and I was too miffed to say hi.... in fear of the whole "weirdos who read my blog come up to me at random places and say hi" thing... and besides I was distracted telling the greenpeace activists that they are just terrorists...so there...

But then she saw me, walking with my sis on park street... as she was having lunch in one of the restaurants... with sunando.... and sunando even pointed me out... "that guy's erebus"... and my sis actually even turned to say hi... and actually had a fleeting moment of recognition through the glass... (like the odd single frames of ghoul pictures in "the exorcist" which you don't always think you saw but it stays with you)... but we bustled on...

hmmm...

Calcutta really is a teensy weensy place... or Bini really goes out a lot...

2006-08-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

bloggers in love

three bloggers and one not

2006-07-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

Meeting bloggers in real life is always a little weird...

You never quite know what to expect... you think you'll recognise them... you think you know them so well coz you read their blog everyday... but the fact is.... you dont really know them at all.. do you?

So when you see them... you sometimes stare them in the face.. and dont recognise them..
you run into them in malls... or catch a glimpse of them driving by in some grey maruti.... and some part of your mind tells you that you know them... but you can't make the connection in time.... even if you did.. what are you supposed to say? "i know you from your blog. nice to meet you."
come on... I know a lot of ppl who have said they don't like it when random unattractive strangers come up and say that. So forget it.

Anyway... met a number of bloggers this time. Mostly by design. A couple by accident... erythrocyte and Bini (met as in... saw from distance)... and srin claims I failed to recognise her.

met Trina, Black Cat and Ponchie in one fell swoop...
then met arunava, scorpionragz and aquilus altius in another....
ofcourse met shion and aveek... but I have met them before... so no biggie.. shion's changed.... he has grown hair... and some weird bionic protrusion out of one ear....
Arunava I realised I already knew.... jacobean.... made the mistake of saying "ah... you were that nerdy kid in school".... probably took it to heart.... ragini somehow looked different than I had expected... thinnner I guess...
Ponchie looked shorter than I had always imagined her to be... trina... she's the same.... black cat is a tiny waif of a thing... with these amazingly well crafted traditional features... once again... different from what I had imagined...not sure how....
and ofcourse... there was diviani... whose pics I have not really seen... she never really puts them up anywhere... which lead me to believe she was some plain little girl with tons of personality and talent... as that is often the case with ppl who dont put up pictures... but quite the contrary... apart from a charming personality and talent... she is strikingly beautiful... so much for assumptions...
And there is always bodhi
couple of people I DID want meet... but somehow didn't happen... "sen"sational, musicalmosquito and gairik....

ah well...

maybe next time... in a year.. or two

a blurred blogger

2006-07-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

so... the trip

Trips back to calcutta are always weird. It's like passing from one life into another in a way. Because Perth is my home. It's my life. But in a way calcutta is my life too. And it's most definitely my home. It's a weird feeling. Not the way most expatriate students feel I reckon. Because when you are just a student in a different place that other place is not REALLY your home. Calcutta is still your home. But for me it's different.
I can't quite explain it. I guess it's the time also. But it just feels bizarre. The first night, the next morning. I just walk around my house touching things, opening drawers to see if things are still there. I walk into a room and somehow still instinctively flick the correct switches, still straight away find a book I have been looking for.

It's like batman entering the bat cave.

The acclimatisation is also funny. As soon as I land the sweat hits me. The sticky, itchy humidity. My travelling shirt (a disgusting brown thing with pockets in the front for secure storage of passport and full sleeves for protection from unpredicatable air conditioning) sticks to my skin, drenched instantly. The throat dries up... I cough up tar. I realise I am using more english words than bengali. That too with a slightly funny accent.

But all that changes. Pretty soon it doesn't feel so hot. Auto rides seem natural. I start using bengali words again.

I am home.

In many ways this was a spectacular trip. Met with tons of people. Quite a few people I had never met before. Bloggers and such. Living away from the family circus for a change was spectacular. I need to do this more often.

Crap... I am going to miss calcutta

2006-06-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

blogging from singapore airport....
Always wanted to do this.... feel really high-tech and jetset and such...
The flight was modestly ok... got to sit at the very first row.... next to two bickering teenage brothers... the choice of inflight movies was shocking... saw "16 blocks"... then I had a choice of Basic Instinct 2 or benchwarmers or she's the man or the two boys bickering... so I had my earliest cocktail till date.. a singapore sling at 10:30AM.... followed by the most nauseating screwdriver EVER. It's the orange juice. THe singapore airlines special orange juice. They serve it everytime. It's the most sour, acidic glass of juice you'll ever taste.

Anyhow... will probably take a nap or soemthing... probably won't venture out...

Another bengali family in perth has entrusted me with their son... a 19 yr old with the mental capacity of a 5 yr old and the hormones of a 12 yr old. Can't shake Rat-boy... must try.. the parents of another Perth bengali also boarded with us.... I was asked to look after them. But I have succeded in shaking them at arrival gate.... but I can find them again. The gentleman wears a orange monkeytupi.... I could find him from the moon.

Anyhow... my time meter has almost run out... so bye for now

I will be in Kolkata for the next 3 weeks or so... drop a message with your number of whatever... will give you a call if you are open to the idea.... time and petty insecurities permitting...

12...
11...
10...
9...

2006-06-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm on my way.....

2006-06-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

Alrightey... tickets bought.. so there....it's final...

I'm going...

My mom can get my dad to fake all the hernias she wants... no good now!

But there's work to be done.

1. Must complete exams.
2. Must buy blue goth hair colour from punk store in the red light district of the city... spoke with the store owner and convinced them to specially bring some in for me.... made it sound like I was desperate to get my hands on it....this'll be fun... especially since I am bald... and anything but goth....will post more on this later... the things I do for people I met over the internet.
3. Must buy as much Aero mint chocolate as I can. Same reason as above.
4. Must buy something nice for someone who has specifically asked me not to buy anything.
5. Must make copies of Oblivion and other RPG's for blue haired freak.
6. Must buy some good white wine. Possibly some absolut vodka.
7. Must procure worthwhile reading material for the flight/14 hr stopover. This'll be the greatest challenge of all.
8. Must remove all compromising material from computer. Can't lock it with password. Will arouse suspicion.
9. Must buy food. Enough to last me 20 odd breakfasts. Can't stand breakfast in India. Especially that thing you pass off as cheese.
10. Must shave off beard. Must make myself look like the 15 yr old baby faced chump with flowing hair that is on my passport.

2006-06-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

You've got to love Aparajita...

Incredible female.

Calcutta International School for 4 years... bunch of other schools before.... but finished at CIS... came to Perth... bounced around a bit... finally joined my uni... with Biomedical science.. her overzealous went and met the HOD a number of times to discuss her daughter's "future"... good ol' HOD... saw another person with the same surname and immediately passed the buck... to me...
Then she looks me up... from the phone book! On google... finally traces down my phone number and calls me up.....

We meet.. and meet again... I ask her why she is doing this... she says she wants to study neuroloscience.. and then combine that with her interest in occult and supernatural... and start a business...hmmm...

but I just can't get over the conversation we had yesterday

A: Hey man! I really need your help.
Me: Sure. What's wrong?
A: I only got 52 in my essay in Anatomy.
Me: ok... But you said You did a great job.
A: Clearly not. I think the teacher has it in for me. I will challenge this.
Me: That's strange. I know the guy. He is fairly harmless. How much work did you put in?
A: About 2 days.
Me: Ok.. that's pretty low. Normally they expect you to put in about 2-4 weeks.
A: Yeah. But isn't the quality of work more important than the quantity.
Me: True. You could do the work in a short time and still do well. Tell me. How many references did you put in?
A: 3.
Me: WHAT? You submitted a major essay with 3 references?
A: Isn't quality more important than quantity? I could put in pages of references and they could all be meaningless.
Me: True. But normally you actually have to READ the references and use that material in your essay. That's what the reference list is for. Not for just putting in random references. But ofcourse a few quality refernces are alway better than a ton of rubbish ones. So what kind of references did you put it?
A: Internet sites mostly.
Me: Dear god! You DO know that internet sites do not have any weight whatsoever in a scientific essay? You have to put in proper stuff. Proper printed stuff.
A: I did!
Me: What was it?
A: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Me: You submitted a scientific essay in anatomy with two web references and one reference to an encyclopedia? Lord! You have to reference journals!
A: You mean like... TIME?
Me: No. Not magazines. Science journals.
A: Like "New Scientist"?
Me: Never heard of Nature? Or Science? Or Biological Reviews? The Lancet?
A: No...
Me: Those are journals.. you have to refer them. You have to refer primary material. You have to have atleast a dozen references for a first year essay. Atleast 8 primary articles.
A: Oh man. Shit. They didn't tell us any of this.
Me: What do you mean? That's what the "Foundation unit" is there for. What foundation unit did you do?
A: "Structure thought and reality"
Me: That's a philosophy unit! It's meant for people doing philosophy, education, humanities and shit. Why did you do it? You should have done a science foundation unit.
A: I do what I feel like. And I like philosophy.
Me: Anyway. Too late now. But I bet even the arts people know how to reference and stuff. Surely. They must have taught you some of that in the workshops.
A: I didn't attend the workshops. Just the first two.
Me: Why not? There is a mark for workshop attendance!
A: It's only 8 marks. Screw that. I figured out I was passing anyway. Besides the teacher doesn't like me. He has it in for me.
Me: Well. What are you going to do now? This is exactly what the foundation unit is there for. To learn stuff that you will need the rest of your professional life. It's not there so that you can "pass" it. Infact that's what this entire university is there for. To LEARN!
A: Ah fuck it. I can't be bothered man. I tell you what. Why don't we sit down one day. You teach me this shit.
Me: You want me to teach you all the stuff you were suppsed to learn in the first semester but you didn't?
A: Yeah yeah. Ami toke khaiye debo (I will treat you).
Me: Really? Toke to oyster khawate hobe (you'll have to treat me to oysters). A tutor would charge you $60 and hour.
A: HAHAHAHA. Chal yaar. We'll meet up sometime after you come back. Meantime let me challenge all the results. Whaddya reckon? Will they rule in my favour and increase the marks a little? 15%? Even 10% is enough. Won't ask for anymore. Whaddya say?

hmmm

I tell you... you gotta love her.

2006-06-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

These are the days of miracle and wonder

Don't cry baby don't cry.

I found this album while walking around scoffishly at a Malaysian neighbours garage sale. The way you walk around garage sales... like to say "Ha! I have better stuff." but at the same time looking to pick up something special. And I found this lying at the bottom of a cardboard box full of old pool toys.

Paul Simon's Graceland. I had always wanted to get hold of the full album. It is widely acclaimed by critics to be a masterpiece.

And I wasn't disappointed. The album is just perfect. It is like a dream... the lyrics make sense at some subconcious level but you lose sense of it if you try to analyse it. Isn't that what good poetry is supposed to be?
The music is perfect. It's complex yet delightfully instinctive. Orchestral and full yet subtle and distinct. Paul Simon apparently travelled to Africa for influence. And there is a lot of that in the music. It's blended in, in the most seamless manner with his own style of country/rock.

This album really is a gem. A must have for any true music-lover's collection.

So here you go. Listen to the radio blog for the songs. Let me know what you think.

You don't feel you could love me but I feel you could...

2006-06-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

The microbiology II exam is a funny one... they have to make it that way... because it is a purely elective unit. So every single schmuck (yours truly included) doing the unit.. is doing it because they wanted to. Nobody was forced. So if they start failing people... they won't attract too many enrollments... and that means no more $75 haircuts for our bruce willis look alike lecturer (yup... the guy's bald.. don't ask me why it costs $75 to shave a head... I do it for free... but he does drive every single girl in the class wild.. so I am going to end this argument before it hurts my insecurities).

Here is how it works...

There are 11 lectures.
Each lecture covers 1 topic.
There are 10 questions only in the exam. All questions carry equal mark.
You are not likely to get more than 1 question per topic.
You have to answer any 4 questions of your choice.

Do the math.

I am not a gambling man (actually I am... not with money or clothes... just with life changing decisions and career choices and such)... but I like the odds...

2006-06-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

I am surprised at how few people have seen the year's two best movies (so far) in my opinion

V for Vendetta - What a killer movie! Political, cruel, no holds barred comic book movie. Absolutely fascinating stuff. From the Wachowski brothers. I just think it wasn't promoted enough. Loved it.

Inside Man - Probably the best thriller of the genre I have seen for a long time. It's actually uunfair to call it a genre movie because it completely re-invents it. Amazing movie. And the fact that Spike Lee has directed it probably makes it extra good. It makes it so much more than a bank heist/hostage movie.

Recently saw "Brick". A really good movie. Very interesting premise. It's like a classic noir film set in a high school. Like Chinatown meets the OC. I know... sounds cheesy. But it is anything but. It's exceptionally well done. Do watch.

Saw the Da Vinci Code.... I don't know why everybody hated it so much. Come on...It's not THAT bad. It's nothing spectacular, but still as far as movies go there have been worse. I think it's being mauled a little undeservedly. Feel sorry for Ronny Howard. If he had adapted any other book for the movie, he would have chopped and sliced it and moved things around and put in extra scenes and taken out unnecessary ones. But here he was adapting the most famous book of our time, and he got the jitters. Every time he picked up the scissors, some part of him said "What are the fans going to think" and in the end he just decided "screw it... I'll put it all in... if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And that's where it fails. There was entirely too much information, too many things happening. I reckon he should bring out a "director's cut" DVD... pick up the scissors and just re-edit the whole thing. Even that would seriously improve it.

Saw X-Men 3. Really annoyed now. I am actually a big fan of the X-men saga. Probably the only comic book movie franchise I am really fond of. I was so looking forward to this. And now I am disappointed. They changed directors. Brian Singer is too busy with "House" so they got in some other schmuck. And he just turned it into a fireworks show. It's still reasonably fun to watch, but it completely lacks any depth or dimension. Something there was plenty of in the first two movies. Which is why they were so great. The feeling of teenage melancholia, the gothic foreboding, the internal conflicts, the social ostracisation themes. All these things are gone. Just crash boom bang. So sad.

BTW: If you want to see a BAD movie... watch "Bloodrayne". This movie takes bad movie making to a whole new level. It's shocking how bad a movie can be. I'm not kidding. The story, the acting, the cinamtography, the direction, the sound, the special effects. It is just so uniformly shockingly bad. I reckon if they had just strung together the cut scenes from the game it would have made a better movie. Even I could have made a better movie with my handycam. And what a waste of a cast... Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Geraldine Chaplin, Kristanna Lokken (The terminator 3 chick... she has a pretty hot sex scene in this... probably the only thing worth watching), Michelle Rodriguez, and Meatloaf. If he had jsut locked these actors in a room for 2 hours and filmed them it would have made a better movie.

Movies that I am really looking forward to:
1) The Namesake : Jhumpa Lahiri meets Mira Nair. Trailer looks good. Don't know why they didn't use any bengali actors though.
2) District B13: I love french action movies. This one is supposed to be one of the best.
3) Apocalytico : The new Mel Gibson. Looks bizarre. Like "Cold Mountain" set in ancient Mayan civilization.
4) Clerks II: Remember how much fun the first one was?

And there is this semi-animation, semi-live action movie called "princess" which made a huge impact at his year's canne's. About a priest who single handedly wages a bloody and brutal war on the porn industry. My kind of stuff. Must get hold of it somehow.

2006-06-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

some guy picked up my coldplay tickets today..paid cash...now they are gone... final... no second chances now..

The Whitlams are playing at our usual hangout "The Hyde Park Hotel" this weekend... I have a Microbiology exam this Monday... DAMMIT!!

In desperation for some quality live music I tried to score tickets for the Split Enz concert... even they are sold out...

WHY? Why have thou forsaken me?

I have a sneaky suspicion my mom is going to screw up my India trip as well.... I know she will... she always manages to do these things... I told her I was planning to buy a Ford Probe... and she flipped "No... you are buying a small car for $2500"
"What's it to you. It's my money, my car I'll do what I feel like"

She did not reply... which just means she is thinking up some particularly disatrous way to exact revenge.... like botching my trip...

She was watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" the other day.... shaking her head at the antics of raymond's mom..... and muttering beneath her breath... "tsk tsk tsk... amateurs"

2006-06-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

Ok.. so I cheated... I was supposed to come up with a new theme for radio blog... instead I am putting up the entire Whitlams album "Little Cloud"

Now... I don't know if you have ever heard of the whitlams... great great aussie band... but this album is simply spectacular... I strongly suggest you give these tracks a try... 16 songs on 2 discs... pure beauty...

Rarely am I this happy about an album.. but this one is really worth it...

Give it a listen.... especially "Wite Horses", "Tonight", "Keep the light on", "Beauty in me"... argh.. they are all so good...
Tell me how you liked them...

NOTE: "The pokies" is actually froma different album... but it probably falls in my favourite songs of all time list... so I put it in there anyway

2006-06-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

In my experience... there is nothing funnier than real life... and I mean REAL life... in the raw.. unedited...

I am not talking about the version of "real life" some people put up on their blogs, chronicling the minor events of their life in beautifully crafted language and well measured wit and punctuated with wodehouse-wannabe one liners.

No... I am talking about the real deal..

Which is exactly the reason I like reality comedy and observational humor and watching weirdos...

Which is why I am so fond of orkut these days.... it's pure, uncut real life... real people doing what they do best... be complete idiots...

I spoke about this before... and now I am doing it... I am actually starting a blog dedicated to these people.... the best of orkut profiles... presented with a touch of preamble (i love preamble)... but with only the minimum.... so you can gawk at them... in their pure, unmodified idiocy...

Welcome to Orkut Weirdos

2006-05-31T08:12:00.000-07:00

aveek called me yesterday.... long distance... and it wasn't even my birthday...

sigh... "people" are now going to say he's in love with me...

poor poor mouli

2006-05-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

I don't get what the deal is with comment moderation. Or disabling comments altogether. Seriously... comments are probably the only reason people blog... they blog because they know someone out there is reading it... there are some people you want to read your blog.. and some people you don't. But you can't want ANYBODY to read your blog? What's the point then... ever been on a blog with a ton of posts... but not a single comment.. don't you feel a little sorry for them?

But yeah... blog security... the word verification I can understand... nobody wants their blog comments to be filled up with online casino ads... but wht the whole comment moderation thing...

I don't know... there's probably a perfectly sensible reason... but I don't understand it...

I actually have a problem with the term "moderation"... that's the problem... authority, censorship, intellectual policing... somehow it really upsets me.... the fact that someone else controls how I express myself... I am responsible person... I won't say anything THAT objectionable... but either way.. nobody else should have the right to control that.

Used to be on this online community once... the "moderator" was this neo-fascist pig... big on moderation.... like the guys who tried to ban a play called the "sextet" because it sounded lewd. That kind of moderation... RSS type... man he got my goose! Very few people have managed to irritate me as much as he has... and the emails that we sent back and forth...

I wonder what he is up to these days? Hopefully drowned in a pool of his own vomit.

yeah.. pretty sure he did...

think it was in the papers..

2006-05-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

"joke of the century"

Manmohan Singh to Bush - " We are sending Indians to the moon next year......"
Bush -  "Wow! How Many? "
Manmohan Singh  - 100
25 - OBC
25 - SC
20 - ST
5 - Handicapped
5 - Sports Persons
5 - Terrorist Affected
5 - Kashmiri Migrants
9 - Politicians
and if possible
1 - Astronaut

This email was sent to me by my friend who was in James's im class 11&12 and is currently doing chem eng. in JU.
His father is a fair;y high ranked government official with a decent amount of extra income.
In his admission forms he always ticks the ST box.

How could he in his right mind send this out to everybody? Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

2006-05-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

In my experience... you can classify almost everybody into a few well defined boxes...

This hold true for bloggers... than most other people out there...

hmmmm

nah... Ill finish this some other time... wanted to make a post about the categories of bloggers..

but it's late... so some other time...

2006-05-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Me: "Yeah... yeah... like when I used to work at clubX..."

everybody else in the room: "You what?"

Yeah... I did work at clubX. Briefly. It's a chain of adult stores. I worked at the smaller vic park branch. Not the city branch where they have peep shows, with reams of paper towels in the booths. But this was JUST a store. Like any store. Like a lottery ticket agency. Same sort of customers. 40+ losers in flannel.

Pay was good. Traffic was low. Hours were highly suitable (5pm - 11pm).

People sometimes tell me "you have done some pretty weird junk in your life"... and you wouldn't think I did... by looking at me.. or even by knowing me really well. It seems fairly uncharactristic that I have done some of the stuff I claim to have done. But I really have. And it's usually as a result of circumstances than any real choice. Or concious decision.

Take for example, jobs I have held down. And these are real jobs. I have been payed for these. Not monopoly money either.

1: ClubX counter attendant.
2: Funeral hearse driver.
3: Security attendant at private party.
4: IT support person.
5: Call centre operator for Cancer Council
6: 1st level helpdesk support attendant for ISP.
7: Casual research assistant.
8: Book cover designer.
9: Light & Sound technician/ Stage manager.
10: Demonstrator for Intel Centrino.
11: Demonstrator for "The Cheese Barrell"
12: Playwrighting/Direction consultant.
13: Computer parts reseller/repairer.
14: Mystery shopper.

Yeah...that's all I can think of at the moment.

It would be one weird resume if I put it all in....

2006-05-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

radio blog needs changing..

possible themes:

1. Jazz
2. Songs that changed the world.
3. Rock with classical influences
4. My favourite female vocalists
5. The best lyrics ever
6. My favorite bengali songs (this is gonna work...)

Need to change the template.. the horror show things isn't doing it for me anymore

possible themes:

1. Impressionism
2. Noir
3. Pre-raphaelite
4. Pre-1950 sex symbols
5. Graffiti
6. cubism

2006-05-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

my India trip has received entirely too much publicity. I think I know who's at the bottom of this. But he's my best friend so can't do anything about it... All sorts of people, I haven't met since the farewell, and wasn't really very keen on meeting, are suddenly wanting to "meet up".
Besides I am being scheduled to meet new people I haven't seen before.
Some people have even assumed that I am "coming back for good"...

I think I should make like U2 and call the whole tour off right about now...

2006-05-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

seriously... how gay is this guy..
check out his photo album while you are there..
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=5565111555208967957

And that's my nemesis... the bastard's in orkut as well.. finally... that's one guy I wouldn't mind decapitating... really I wouldn't... I don't completely understand why.. I am not even the hateful type. But something about his bug like evil eyes makes me feel like squishing them under my thumbs.
http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=12563526664378169377

I should start a section... weirdo of the week or something... pick one from orkut/blogger/Hi5/ctta/cafekolkata... the works... do like a profile.... kinda like playmate of the month.... except not nude (or maybe nude... depends on how weird they are...)

yeah....

2006-05-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

Is Orkut fun or what?

Normally I am a little put off by the whole digital community thing. Rarely does anythign good come out of it. Sometimes it's fun in a perverse way because you get to mess with people and do role playing and set up little mad scientist social experiments... but Orkut is not good for that... so I wasn't really interested...

But people forced me to sign up. Every third day I would get an invite.. so what the hell... signed up... didn't check my account for weeks... then people would SMS me from different continents asking me to check my "scrapbook"

But now I have gotten into it somewhat...It's fascinating... like one MASSIVe collection of weirdos. That's why it's so different from other online communties. There you only get a relatively small selection of weirdos...talking back and forth and reconfirming their weirdoness.... but in Orkut... you have almost EVERY single weirdo there is in the world... flying scraps all over the place. It's stunning to watch.

Couple of things I have learned from Orkut.

1. That six degrees of separation thing I saw in a Will Smith movie once is actualy true. You pick out any profile at random. And just look at the collection of names on top. There are usually less than 6 links between and them. Amazing! Never actually thought it worked.

2. When you lose track of some people... from childhood... you know... they go away... and somehow you think they fell off the planet and died... they didn't actually. Imagine that. They're all still here! It's amazing the kind of people I have reconnected with. A kid that used to carpool with me in the second grade. Showed up at my birthday and bodhi smeared red cake icing on his cheeks. This guy who was with us for 2 years in school. Used to be fascinating with WWII and would bring an entire tiffin carrier (you know.. the ones with 5 bowls linked together... the stainless steel ones) in a orange basket... to eat during recess. They're all still alive!

3. Don't post pictures of yourself with topless women on Orkut. Your relatives are on it too (What kind of a weirdo collection would it be.. if it didn't have MY relatives on it)..

4. Thou shalt scrap everybody constantly.... otherwise they take it very personally.

5. Thou shalt not scrap in their own book.... but open up other people's books... tediously one by one... and scrap there...

6. As much as we denounce labels, as soon as we join Orkut we attach about 50 of them to ourselves. The whole communities thing. We just have them. We never post in most of them (coz they are all in friggin brazilian anyway), and we don't read the messages (same reason), but we still keep joining them rapidly. Just for the little pictures.

7. Reet knows almost EVERY single person I know...

Things I haven't learnt:

1. What do the little numbers next to the names mean? Is a bigger number better or worse. How can I get the numbers up (or down)? It's a competition thing isn't it?

2. Why guys have pictures of male celebrities as their profile pics. That has to be the single most gayest thing to do. What? You are trying to fool people into believing you are John Abraham? Does anybody fall for that? If you are just trying to chat with hot brazilian females, atleast make an effort to have a real looking fake picture. Find a friend who is good looking, take snaps of him and put them up. And if you are NOT trying to get hottie Brazlian chicks to talk to you... and you have Bikram Saluja as your display pic.. well.. have to break it you.. but you are a poof..

2006-05-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

Had a 15 minute presentation today... for the business studies thing...the longest I have done so far probably...

Went smashingly well I think. Considering... I'm a lab rat. They said I should be a used car salesman. I'm not taking it as a compliment.

Dress-up's always fun. Put on a blazer, striped shirt, ironed black trousers, clean handkerchief... the works.

Quite a change from my usual full sleeved t-shirt... jeans with strategically placed holes... and the famous denim cap to hide my bald patch.

No cap tpday!

Infact took extra moisturiser to the shaved dome... polished it up to a nice shine... If I got stranded on an island today, I could probably send SOS signals to a distant ship by just nodding my head.

Went carried away and let one of the girl's put a face mask thing on me. Must admit it's kinda soothing. Don't know what the hell it does for the skin though. But it does relieve stress and tension. Must do more of them. Or maybe not. Don't want people to say "wow.. you're glowing... how many months are you?"

People were quite stunned when I came out of the restrooms, five minutes before the show. Ever seen this movie abt Steve Allen & Bill Gates? Where Allen, all bearded and hippie, goes into a toilet at a trade show, comes out all yuppie and sells a million Apples. Well... that's what it was like. And people were all... "is that still you in there ?"

I like doing that. Shocking people. Like when I shave my head every 6 months and keep a beard and walk around in dark sunglasses and observe people's reactions behind them.

Anyway. This post is too self obsessed to be any good. Self obsessed posts suck. They offer the reader absolutely no food for thought.

So here this one ends....

2006-05-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

It's a little funny when you forget your own birthday... and so does most people around you...
I woke up at 6:30... got dressed and went for lung scoopings.... too early for any interaction with the family... (one of the few bonuses of this job)... and it wasn't until much later in the day... somebody completely unexpected rang me up to wish me Happy Birthday... and then it hit me... yup.. things had gotten pretty bad.... it's not like I totally forgot... I knew it was in the region.. just didn't know it was that day....
And then we had the whole charade of cutting the choc-chip cake(which we have every two weeks anyway... but today it's suddenly special) and mumbling lyrics to the song and pretending to be excited about receiving pants and thanking my dad for a greasy meal at the same chinese restaurant we eat at every month anyway (SURPRIIIIIIISE you thought we were going to eat at home!) ... they say that the thought counts... but I think the thoughts pretty much gone out of it too... it's more like "can we get this done so that we can go back to what we were doing"
And frankly who can blame them... birthdays are bloody stupid anyway... it's probably the most meaningless cause for celebration possible... yay! you lived another year! we're so proud of you.....
And don't mistake me for one of those birthday blues I am getting older type cliches... I am not... I actually look forward to getting older.. I'd be perfectly happy with being 32 right now... that way my appearance would actually reflect my age more closely.... so it's not that...
But it's just a little weird actually... a little window into the future maybe... happened for a couple of years now... the whole birthday thing... more of a drudgery than anything... they used to be fun... your friends used to know.... and they would celebrate with you... but you're not with your friends anymore.... you make new friends... and don't really tell your new friends when your birthday is do you? why would you? Even if you did... they don't remember... And the only people who DO know... and DO remember... are the people you want to have absolutely nothing to do with... who buy you cheap pants and greasy chinese food... neither of which you would ever buy for yourself....
But you know something... I am a little glad they remembered and they were around.... in a couple of years they probably won't be... and then I would have just woken up and gone to scoop out lungs and come back and wokred out and written reports and watched scrubs... and then think to myself a week or two later... shit... Happy Belated Birthday to me....

2006-05-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Some bloggers have been asking to see what I look like....

Here you go... I'm the one in the middle

2006-05-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

There are movies...

And then there is the CI-NE-MA

Streer Patra is the latter.... watch it if u haven't...

and u thought Ray was as good as it got... ha!

2006-05-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we say things to people... without realising how much it affects them.... i mean... there is no reason why it should. But it does.

I saw one example of this... myself. There is this person... who was having a torrid breakup... and I barely knew her.... and we were talking... and I said..."I barely know you. But from what little I do know. You are one of the kindest, selfless people I have met. Only a really really lucky guy deserves to have you. And only a fool would give you up. This guy was the second one. Let it go."

Why did I say it? I.... don't know. It was just probably the corniest thing I could think of at the moment which didn't sound corny enough. Something to say without thinking too much.

A year later we are back in touch again. And she tells me "remember what you said?" No I didn't honestly.... until she repeats it back to me word for word. And tells me that it completely changed her outlook on life. Instead of running after relationships, she realised the importance of self worth. And soon enough.... the ideal relationship found her. When she wasn't looking at all. And they've been great ever since.

Works the other way too...

Somebody told me they find talking to me "unsettling".... (please... I am not holding it against you... just making a point)... It shouldn't bother me... it's fairly insignificant person making a comment that is fairly insignificant to me life in general. But it's affected me. Quite strangely. Every time these days that I make acquintance with someone of the opposite sex... that comes into my head... and sits on my shoulder like a tine winged Imp... "what's you doing wrong?, what're you doing wrong?"
And just when we get to the point that she says "You're heaps fun to talk to ... we should do this more often"... I panic... and I tell her.... "be careful what you ask for. There are people out there who'll never talk to me again."
"why?"
"I dunno. But one of them told me I am too 'unsettling'. So I am letting you know now. I can be .... 'unsettling' apparently. So please don't hate me later on.... just know this now.. don't say I didn't warn you... coz I did."

And then I watch. Their salad fork stops in mid-air and the olive falls off... the sudden exhalation blows off the foam from her capuccino.... the chat window freezes a little longer.... some don't blink... some squint... Some give nervous laugh thinking I am joking only to realise I am not... they don't know what to say.. neither do I.

I have to get over this.... It's unnecessary and trivial. I am sure it is. But you know what. Sometimes at night... you lie in bed and sleep doesn't come... and you think... and you drift... and you think about these things.... and not matter how much you tell yourself that it's trivial and stupid and the other person's deranged... some part of you always wonders.... "what if it's true?"

What if it is...

2006-05-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

see.. this is the problem...

Too many people who know me personally are reading this blog. I have tons of REALLY interesting, sordid and melodramatic stuff happening in my life right now. Stuff you pathetic curiousity hogs would lap up like last nights lasgna. But I can't post about any of them. Because there is atleast one person reading this who I wouldn't want to know abt it.

So in the immortal words of madame Golda Meyer.. "tough titties people"

Now I must actually think up something interesting to post...

2006-05-01T04:58:00.000-07:00

Met someone last Tuesday... had the best time.. spoke for 5 hours.. just talked. haven't had such conversations in a long time. Felt good. Thought we could be friends.

Met again today. She told me that she believed in astrology and palmistry. Asked me my star sign and read my palm. And not in a flirty way. Then told me that she was studying neuroscience because she wanted to start a business involving neuroscience, yoga, and parapsychology. Then met her mother who explained to me how Kali was so great and Hinduism was the only worthwhile religion around and how Muslims should be shot.

Hmm... knew this was too good to last. Too bad... too bad

2006-04-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

The key to a woman's heart... is an unexpected gift... at an unexpected time...

hehehehehehe

2006-04-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

Just watched "birth of a nation". Had always wanted to. Part of "silent movies" phase. Fascinating stuff. The mastery and the craft. And yet... the subject matter is so utterly ugly. It's a vehicle for racist propaganda. A story abt the formation of the Ku Klux Klan. A highly coloured and distorted version of history. And deliberately so. But the amount of work and art and money that went into this film is amazing. And it shows. A pioneering work of film. Too bad it's so difficult to get your hands on.

Some other silent films which I loved.

1. Battleship Potemkin
2. Metropolis ( a MUST watch... fascinating early sci-fi... just the concepts)
3. The cabinet of Dr. Calgari
4. Nosferatu
5. City Lights (the obvious Chaplin)
6. Intolerance (another epic... from the makers of "Birth of Nation")
7. Greed
8. Dr. Mabuse (one of my favourite movies of all time.... influenced me deeply... what a central character!)

2006-04-15T04:09:00.000-07:00

more on the apple festival later...

first.. must share two more conquests of indian call centre operators...

so here goes:

CC: Hello Miss Webster.
Me: Do I sound like a Miss to you?
CC: Sorry Mr. Webster.
Me: And if I am male I have to be Mr. Webster?
CC: Err... sir your phone has been pre-selected for a faaaaantastic offer.
Me: great!
CC: Sir may I know how much you spend on your phone bill?
Me: Why? You tell me what you got to offer... why must I tell you what I got?
CC: Ok sir. I am guessing you are maybe paying around $90 and just $35-$50 on line rental. We are offering only$25 on call rental and 40 free local calls. How does that sound?
Me: Not impressive. I pay $29 and get 60 local calls free.
CC: but sir you only pay $25 with us..
Me: But I get more free calls with mine...
CC: But sir... ours is cheaper...
Me: *No it's not you idiot... but I'd rather not explain* .. look... my phone is tied up with my cell phone and internet... a bundle offer..
CC: Sir we also have a great internet offer... You only pay 9.95 for the first three months for unlimited download at 256kbps.
Me: And what after three months?
CC: You pay 39.95.
Me: Aha! That's the catch isn't it? I only pay 29.95 for my internet....same terms...
CC: But sir... for the first three months you get it for 9.95...
Me: What good is that? I pay $20 for 3 months and then $10 more for the rest of my life!
CC: Sir we also have great cell phone rates. You can get $60 worth of calls for a fixed price of $20...
Me: So what? I get $120 of call for $29 and a free phone...
CC: But sir... our's is only $20...
Me: What are talking about? Why should I switch? I get more call time with this! If I switch I will have to cut down my calls by half to save 9 miserable dollars...
CC: Sir. what are their call rates. Ours is 32c for 30 seconds
Me: Mine is 25c.
CC: So sir... would you be interested in signing up with us?
Me: *Now I'm pissed! Is this guy retarded or something?* No way! Why should I? Why quit a good deal for a worse one?
CC: But ours is cheaper sir. You save money.
Me: Ok... can you do maths? If I switch over... I will pay $20 base PLUS about $35 extra for $120 worth of calls... so $55.. where I am paying $29.... So I lose $25 a month... I change my internet over... I save $20 for threee months.. so $60.. but I pay $10 extra everytime after.. so in a year.. I would have lost $90...so for the first year I lose $30... next year I lose $120!! I save $4.00 on line rental but get 20 fewer calls... so those extra 20 calls will cost me about $5.50! so I lose $1.50... I lose everyway!! What kind of a crazy person would I be to sign up with you!!!
Me: But sir our's is a good deal sir...
CC: No it's not! I am very happy where I am.. I'm not changing...
Me: Sir can you tell me whic provider you are with?
CC: What? You do your own market research. You want me to tell you you have to pay me consusltancy fees... bye!

Jackass...

Ok.. the second one was just too good... I was ina special mood that day!

CC: Hello sir! I have a fantastic offer for you.
Me: Wow!
CC: Sir... we are giving you a chance to go to your choice of luxury hotels over the next year for a heavily discounted price... Sir... what kind of places do you normally go for on vacations..
Me: Mostly nudist camps...
CC: Where do you normally take your vacations?
Me: To the south west... there are some naturist resorts there...
CC: Sir.. do you go to Melbourne or Brisbane...
Me: Not really... unless they have a nudist convention or something... I don't like aeroplanes much... they don't really appreciate nudism on flights.
CC: Sir.. you live in Perth? You can have a lovely holiday in Joondalup resort for only $89.95 a night for two people... How does that sound?
Me: Great! Is that a nudist establishment?
CC: Sorry what sir?
Me: Do they allow nudists? (no answer) Do they allow people who belive in naturism? (no answer).. Will they be ok with me walking about naked?
CC: Err... sir.. I am sure they will not mind about what you do in your room.
Me: In my room! Ofcourse i will be naked in my room. I am naked right now... but I want be naked everywhere... with other naked people. Does your hotel allow that?
CC: No sir. I don't think so.
Me: Then what's the point? I only go to places where naturism is embraced.
CC: Well sir... for a change.. why don't you try this?
Me: What do you mean for a change? How would you like it if I called you up and asked you to go to a nadist resort "for a change"? Would you?
CC: But sir... this is a good offer..
Me: no no.. answer me.. would you? You want me to embrace textiles but would you embrace nudism for a change? Go ahead.
CC: No sir. I guess not... sorry to bother you sir.

Yessss! got her to hang up before me! Full Points!

2006-04-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

Off to this tomorrow...

The donnybrook apple festival... it's supposed to be part of "field research" for business studies.... but really it's about tasting cider and fruity red wine and home made ice cream...

2006-04-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

What a choice!

Go to India...

OR

See coldplay live

This is going to hurt either way...

2006-04-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

Quick radio blog update..

first song... Del Amitri... nothing ever happens... coz loony wanted to hear it

Then... a special treat for the few Live fans out there.. the entire "songs from the black mountain" album.... the album has not yet been released... but I have it...
so remember... you heard it here first!

And what's the matter with Fossils? I used to be such a huge fan of theirs... their first album was spectacular... a little fake.. a lot talent.. they were like "KISS" or "AC/DC" of bangla rock... completely novel... just fantastic... each and every song...
then Fossils 2... bought it almost days after it came out.. what a let down... telephone effects????what the hell? But still there were a couple of decent songs.. Bicycle Chor... Harano Paudak... Chaal... but others were just plain bad..

Now I have the 3rd one "mission F"... yeah... should have been "Mission F***ed".. what the hell happened? Not a single song among them that is worth sitting through... they already sound like a band over the hill and full of themselves.... tsk tsk tsk.. what a shame.. what a waste...

2006-04-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

The only thing more pretentious than live art... are people that critique live art.

Someone drew my attention to this art critic website and in particular to this article.
Oh My GOD! First of all.. it's just a couch... secondly... it is hard to tell which is a greater piece of work.. the couch or the crtic...

So I've decided to become an art critic myself.

Here is my first article. I didn't have any absurd art handy... so I went and took a picture of the cardboard box I use to collect recyclables. Had a party with my friends soem time back, we ordered in some buotique cider and had it with chips. And that's what my bin looked like the next morning. It could be art.. let's say it is... my critique for it is below that... (if you have any art, music, cinema, or even a blog that you want me to expertly critique... send it over)

The person known only as Erebus is an artist of Magellian depth and honesty. His several ambitious installations deal with the recurring themes, although may seem to deal with chaos and Machiavellian cruelty also deeply reflect a sense of control and deliberation. The classic battle of the Dyonysian and the Apollonian. The two themes branching out like two legs, only to be united in a common origin of darkness, mystery and the sensuality that underly everything - the machinistic and the materialistic.

The latest installation from this artist embodies the same feeling of adolescent urgency and nonchalance. The feeling of emptiness overcrowds this exquisitely assembled installation, making its presence felt by its absence. He doesn’t disassemble the the absence and segregate it contemplating on the significance of the what’s not seen or heard but has taken place nonetheless – in this case a cider party.

Parallels are immediately drawn internally between this installation and Degas’ series of ballerinas. Degas always postulated the omnipresent sense of a ultra-potent ballet recital but only ever presented the ballerinas prior to or after the unseen performance, thereby instigating in us the need to fill the void of the event itself by our own imagination. Where Degas used spent ballerinas, Erebus uses empty cider bottles that obligate, and stimulate simply by lying in a bizarre yet delicate cacophony of the obtuse and isosceles.

Although it first it may appear as a phantasmogoric cerebral overload of the visceral, it is not quite as epidural as it proclaims to be. It is in fact a jarring juxtaposition of the optimistic and beautiful night before on the grimy, pale morning after. It is the Shakesperean destruction of the dreams to copulate, undulate and ululate on the Newtonian realities of being late.

It is human nature to gulp, to gargle and to sometimes regurgitate. Erebus reminds us of that Numidian universal truth through his installations – our fascination with the fantastic – through guarded humor and measured subtlety. Cider bottles harbour our dreams, replenish our hopes and devastate our memories, allowing us to be remorseless in our admission of appreciation for our addiction and transgenderfixation. We had plenty of cider, but no cider is plenty for us.

2006-04-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

My mother's suddenly learnt the F-word as a result of an unfortunate encounter at a bus-stop.
Now she's using it with gay abandon.
She thinks it means something similar to "shit" or "damn".
Somebody should tell her what it really means and maybe then she will stop using it.
The way she stopped using the words "gay abandon".

2006-04-07T03:10:00.000-07:00

my mom's hidden my coffee....

there is going to be violence I swear!!!!!

2006-04-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

ok.... blogroll update... with usual preamble

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Nice little concept blog... run by people with nice concepts... could be made to look better... looks very dull although the content is usually great... if they could put in pics.. even cell phone pics to support the stuff.. that would have been REALLY awesome....otherwise we just have their word for it most of the time... and some of it is not all that true.. like the presidency admission jokes.. come on.. we passed those same ones around when we were in first year... and even then we swore on our mothers that we heard with out own two ears... but fun blog still

Fishing: Chamki's art blog.... a lot of people out there have art blogs... there are some really good ones that are never updated.... and some really pretentious ones that are updated all the time (you know the type, some worthless piece of art with some equally psycho unrhyming poetry)... but this is different... it's fresh, unaffected and honest....somewhere in the middle.. I like it... hope she keeps it up...

Home Sweet Home: Bodhi's started a novel blog... the guy was always a pretty decent writer... and now he has been trained by the best (JU and all)... so he should be a lean mean writing machine....so must see how this shapes out... and exactly how long it lasts before he loses interest... or wins the blooker... either way.

Chini:This blog is not great for the content itself, but more so for the person behind it. It's pretty rare for me to come across people who are as talented and achieving as she is... and it's a delight to get an insight into the world of such people... people who have actually "been there" and are "getting there"... unlike the rest of us who will probably sit at the sidelines most of our lives and dream about it and then do other stuff... but she's the real deal... and there are a couple of weird connections with me... like the proximity of birthdays and the fact that I was watching her plays three years ago....and don't worry.. for a beautiful, talented, super achieving young woman, she's not quite THAT intimidating ( just a little maybe)

and you know the deal... tit for tat..

2006-04-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

So that's my friend Greg... he is a model (once used his pic as mine to throw off a strange and conniving female but in the process also threw off a sweet and wonderful female.... but that's another story)

But the thing is.. he has this bizarre sense of humour... he can turn almost anything you say into a sexual innuendo...
Allow me to demsontrate...

Me: This is Alyson's book. I am going to give it to her.
Greg: I know you'd love to give it to her. But when are you giving her the book.

Me (phone): I am just getting off the bus.
Greg: You love to get it off on the bus don't you?

Me: This is so friggin hard!
Greg: You love it hard don't you?

Me (phone): I'm just coming in behind you.
Greg: .... (on second thoughts.. you figure this one out)

But recently it's become terrible... it's not just obvious things like.. getting it off.. getting it on.. giving it to someone... coming... it's big... it's hard... ride...the usual words...
nowadays it's EVRYTHING.. I mean EVERYTHING...

example

Me: This weekend I am cleaning up the garden..
Greg: Yeah. You love fertilising the bush don't you?

Me: I love listening to the cranberries on a monday
Greg: Yeah. You just love all sorts of ripe fruits don't you?

Me: I got shepherd's pie for lunch...
Greg: You just love pies don't you? Especially when they are nice and meaty.

I swear.. it's impossible now.. and it's rubbing off on me.

just the other day I saw someone walking a geyhound.. I said to her..
"What a maginificent animal!"
"Gee....Thanks!"
"yeah.. and you're dog's pretty nice too...."

DOH!! Thank god she didn't hear me properly..

What's wrong with me? Damn you greg!

2006-04-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Wanted to put up a post about hello..

Have to put up Del Amitri's "Nothing ever happens" for loony...

Have to figure out how much juice can be squeezed from one apple...

Instead spoke with aveek for an hour about women... sigh...

2006-04-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

Last day of freedom..

Tomorrow the queen takes back the castle..

Sigh.. it was fun while it lasted..

2006-04-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Saw three movies today... been a long time since I have seen three movies in a day...

First up was Iris... now movies like this seriously, genuinely scare me. The way Wes Craven scares normal people. Basically I am scared of movies with british dames, mental illness, and writers or novelists. Any combination of those. Needless to say "the hours" was a particularly edgy experience... But this movie wasn't half bad... romantic in a sweet sort of way... but not sugary... not shiny... the sequences featuring their early lives, when the gorgeous young rebellious novelist starts falling for the balding geeky virgin teacher is quite fascinating... very human and touching in a way... the sequences from the later life which alternate get a little boring... a batty english actress playing a rather batty old woman going completely loco... doesn't really hold too many thrills for me... but the old guy... Jim Broadbent... he really lifted it up... nice... good way to spend a Sunday afternoon... and yes.. Kate Winslet does get nude... "eternal sunshine" is the only movie I have seen till date in which she doesn't.... she is the british/fat chicks Nicole Kidman she is....

The second was Legally Blonde 2. Now this movie really DID scare the bajeebers out of me. My urge to kill Reese Witherspoon grows stronger... and I fail to see how anybody could NOT want to kill her.... but it's not her fault.... it's the character she plays... are there really girls like that in America? I am sure there are... I see them in almost every movie...except they are usually minor characters, who are mean to the good kids, and usually meet with some unfortunate accident like pie in the face on prom night... but in this one... SHE is the one making the "believe in yourself and be who you are" speech at the end... Now wonder America is full of psychotic serial killers... Just watching the movie made me, a fairly normal perosn (no laughing), feel like strangling some sorority girls and wearing their flesh as a coat.

Finally... saw Angel heart... always wanted to.... now there... is a GOOD movie...

2006-04-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

I want to write plays... everybody around me seems to be writing plays all of a sudden..
I wrote a play or two once... probably didn't blow anybody's mind... but wasn't showered with eggs either....
I could try again...
I actually joined the theatre club in the university... it was first year... I didn't know anbody... thought it might be a good chance to meet some like minded people...
Boy was I wrong.
Went to a couple of meetings... for some reason I always got the milk crate to sit on... and everybody they asked what my major was they'd go... "ohhh.. really? Biotech... fancy that."
Heard them reading their scripts and stuff.... frankly it was moronic.... it oscillated between Monty Python and Angels talking about war...nothing in between... nothing normal...
Soon enough I realised I wasn't welcome... this club was a forum that the creative writing/media studies/ stage craft and other artsy major students used to trial run their work... they used the club's resources basically (which included free access to the spanking fancy auditorium) to stage their often average productions and get people to see it and get noticed so that they can further their careers.... they didn't want to waste their precious resources and time with amateurs like me... science students... who had their sense of art and beauty surgically removed with umbilical cord..
So I quit... A little unintentionally actually.... It was the third meeting I think... my upper thighs had gone to sleep sitting on the 1.5 foot high crate (while others lounged on the battered, rather shakesperean sofa)...so I stood up to get the circulation running.. when the president Lisa (a strikingly pretty 3 rd year who spent most of the meetings talking about how her latest piercing had completely revolutionised cycling for her) says.. "oh.. are you leaving?"
And that's when it hit me... I guess I was... so I said "I guess I am"... and I guess I left...

Organised intellectualism has never quite been my forte...

But I want to write a play again... I can't write stories... I can think of stories.. but I can't express them in running prose... just not my thing.... you read other people's blogs and they have this gorgeous style of writing... for some it's flowery, for others it's lively, or modern... but it's so stylish... but I can't do that... infact I don't think that way... I don't "think" in prose.. I think in dialogue... I think in scenes... If I were to tell a story... it would always be about people talking... never descriptions, never paragraphs on how beautiful the setting sun looks... but some person saying how beautiful the sun looks...

It's a fantastic feeling writing a play... a script... it becomes a part of you... you see the world through the characters.. the situations... and once you write "drop curtain" it's the greatest feeling ever... and to actually sit ... watching it being performed... it must be the closest thing to watching your wife give birth (without the grossness of the exploding vagina and the ugly head and the blood ofcourse)

So I want to write plays again... good stuff.. traditional stuff... not ultra-modern, absurdist, circular, self gratifying, private joke punctuated, minimalistic, solo acting, ionesco inspired rigamarole that seems to be everywhere... but the good stuff... genre... good old fashioned genre... social drama, morality plays, farce, mystery, thrillers, court drama, romantic comedy, biographical pieces, black comedies ... somebody throws a party of shady of guests and the host gets murdered, and then the detective tries to conceal the fact and solve the crime before the guests go home... A mad-man takes his shrink hostage starting a deadly game of psychological cat and mouse ful of twists and turns... A frustrated, faceless IT professional takes over the identity of eqwually faceless, but soon departed boss and sets all sorts of strange and hillarious things in motion... the new prince of a tiny European country gets bored and decides to wage wars for profit... something funny about sexuality and our reaction to it.... something like a play which is made up of these completely unrelated mini plays which seem to have no connection, but suddenly they all connect together in the last scene...
I could go on... somebody told me a couple of days ago that he couldn't come up with any ideas.. the best he could do was somethign that sounded rather improbable... but I get ideas all the time... they go off like popcorn in my head...

I got so inspired I even bought myself an exercise book... it's nice.. even has this little hole in front where I can put in a pen... and the coreners of the pages can be torn off to make boomarks...
It's fantastic I'll write my name on it... and something funny on the front... "lightbulb explosions"...or "the book of.. something"

And I will probably use it for taking Microbiology notes by next Wednesday...

2006-03-31T09:44:00.000-08:00

it's funny how people react to random acts of violence....
saw one today... in the city... write in front of Aaron hotel (had put up a pic of that once).... some aborigine guy punched a tourist in the face and snatched his shoulder bag.... the guy just sat there... bleeding...

I didn't actually see the bashing... but i was there about 2 minutes later.. the guy was bleeding profusely and sitting on the pavement... and here's the funny bit... everybody sorta looked away... and tried not to notice anything... only one or two people approached them and tried to help... I was among them... I am probably one of the last people on earth to carry handkerchiefs.... but it came in handy this time.. helped stop the bleeding... (try doing THAT with a kleenex)... The guy was just sitting there... stunned... he didn't seem to feel much pain... but he was just... turned to stone.... and then I saw tears in his eyes... and all the while his wife sorta stood back... not touching him or nursing him... I did that... she stood back and kept saying "there was only $80 in it.. but my credit cards in it... have to cancel the cards... where do I call form...."
Then the cops showed up... and pushed me away... "step aside mate"... like I was the one who did it... I droppped my cheese sausage in the process.. pretty rude if you ask me... I should get them to reimburse me $2.40 for the sausage and the hanky...

Anyway... just intersting.. people.. and the things they do.....under crises....
Almost want to be involved in random act of violence myself... I think I would thrive in it... would be fun to see though...

2006-03-29T08:49:00.000-08:00

Man.. I love scrubs..... (this is why)

And I hate...
Finding out I genuinely suck at something
psych students
arts students
anybody in business studies
radiologists
people who listen to some music coz everybody else is
racists bartenders
supermarket checkout chicks who want to make conversation
receptionists
car salesmen
insurance salesmen
indian telemarketers who "are you indian?"
people who answer crucial questions with "I don't know", when they really do but are just too damn lazy to tell you...
people who drive at 50 kmph in the right lane...

yeah... and tons more...but that's enough venom or one day...
Did I mention I hate business studies?

2006-03-28T05:35:00.000-08:00

So... people have been calling me a fuddy duddy because of my taste in music... well... I can be hip... I can be mod... so for a change I did just the opposite..

This week's theme... songs from the current music charts...

Actually this has been a very tough theme... to find a dozen or so songs from charts about a month or so old... which I like...

The problem is that there is entirely too much hip hop and and R&B and rap.... I don't like it... I can't understand it... I just don't get it... I want to have nothing to do with it...

Eliminating that... meant eliminating about 50% of the charts...

Next... I am not in my right mind going to post anything by over-commercialised and over-sexed pop groups.. no black eyed peas... no pussycat dolls (what kind of a name is that anyway? It's basically just stringing together two words which are sexual innuendos... there is absolutely no sense to it... I remember there were weirdos on chat forums who would come up with screen names like that... just two random "cool" sounding words thrown together... immortal hues.. scorpion rags... dreaming satan...anyway)

So.. after a great deal of frustration I put something together...

Tracks to note is the new one from Live... love that band... very underestimated in my opinion but they have had some brilliant stuff.... this new track "the river" is from their new album which comes out later this year.... definitely elements of Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin etc. in there... great stuff
Then ofcourse INXS.. the reformed INXS... still got it... The new Whitlams song is quite nice... very catchy... and ofcourse... who doesn't love curious george...

Anyway.. enjoy.... So maybe I am a fuddy duddy.. what's it to you anyway?

2006-03-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

So I was in the city yesterday.... had bought a 2 hour parking ticket... and the job was suddenly done in 15 minutes.... had and hour and 45 minutes to kill...

So I thought it might be a good idea spending the time joining a new religion...

The closest one I could find was Scientology... a rather incongruos looking building which had this huge banner on it saying "Church of scientology" and these glorious rainbows and waterfalls and clouds in the background... neat...

So scientology has been in the news of late, which is what piqued my interest.. basically "south park" made an episode where they bagged scientologists (like they bag everything under the same... had to happen)... but the guy who played "Chef", a senior black actor and scientologist, got pretty offended and quit the show... and the network.. ofcourse south park is unapologetic, now other people are involved, threats are being made... good fun..

I had never taken scientolgoy very seriously... didn't know anythign abt it... had a crazy uncle who used to believe in dianetics (which has something to do with scientology), which I figured to be some kind of supernatural massage. But he swore by it, constantly used it on himself getting better and better each day... until had to get his hip replaced...

Anyway... now I wanted to know...

So the sign said "Free Stress Test".. and a cute girl was sitting there smiling at me... like a very wise man once told me "If a pretty girl is selling something for free... always buy it"... so I went for it..

She made me put my hands on this device, which looked like a bathroom scale for my hands, and then took some measurements on this thing with dials... apparently this is an "e-meter"... so they ask me questions.. and when the needle jumps.... that means I am stressed about that thing

So I found ou that I was deeply stressed about my dad...the fact that I am not speaking to him... my elder son and his studies... i suspect my spouse of being unfaithful... my colleague who is trying to steal my job... a person at work I have a crush on... and I have a secret that's holding me back

Hmm... interesting...

Then they ask me how I release stress... I say I punch things and drink... they don't believe it's productive.. so they want me to try out dianetics.... it's apparently going to change my life... it's about truth... that's their philosophy... truth... pretty nice philosophy eh?
They believe that everyone's right... if you believe in something it's the truth...
I'm loving this releigion already!
Apparently "they" are ruling the planet... other people don't realise that....

I was hooked... I would have siigned anything they gave me at that point...

but then they broke it...

"Do you want to come upstairs and see the DVD on dianetics? It will answer all your questions and change your life"
Uh-oh. Joining a new religion was one thing... but watching a boring DVD is something else...

"No... I don't think I want to."

"I really beleive you should. It would help you out a lot" *dazzling smile*

"Err... I have epileptic tendencies... flashing lights can set it off... does the DVD have flashing lights?"

"Err.. I'm not sure."

But now i actually WANTED to see the DVD... it could be thrilling stuff...

"Actually... can you burn me a copy... I will watch it at home... so if I get a fit my cheating wife can save my life"

"errrr...no"

DAMN!

2006-03-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

Is there anything more satisfying than finally finding that special DVD you have been searching for all this time...

Yesterday... I was roaming about an obscure supermarket in an obscure north of town suburb.. and there.. in the deep dark recesses of the K-Mart DVD section I found it... a special box set of Andrew Lloyd weber's musicals..

Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat
By Jeeves
Cats
and best of all... Jesus Christ Superstar.

All original stage productions... modified for film... not crappy Hollywood movies...

Then.... as I was walking away... I found it... the First entire season of Arrested Development... what luck! This was almost impossible to get.... because nobody really cares too much abt the show... no wonder it's on at 12:10 am on Tuesdays..
So... got them both... Cost me a small fortune.. but doesn't matter... will copy them and flog off the orginals on eBay....
Now if I can find that illusive Kurusowa box set... I will be complete...

2006-03-21T08:24:00.000-08:00

I hate business studies... why am I studying this crap anyway... oh right.. because I HAVE to.. otherwise they'll flunk me..

Seriously I have no use for this... if I ever find the cure for AIDS and want to start a business selling it... I will hire some Arthur Andersen yuppie... the same way if an Arthur Andersen yuppie gets AIDS, he will hire me.... I simply so point to this study...

And the whole business managemnt thing seems like a different language all of a sudden... a different state of mind....like learning algebra all over again... I really am too old for paradigm shifts...

It's weird hwo science people think in a way that is completely to most other people, especially business. If we need to know something, we do a literature search, find it, reference it. If we have an idea we find out what other people have done along similar lines, then we come up with our own little experiment based on the collected wisdom, and reach conclusions. Simple, clean, pure. But in business studies... it's all messed upIf you want information, you can't look it up. Because nobody will tell you. But you then have to go find out completely bizarre bits of information like the population of the city aged 15-35, units of electricity consumed by the southern suburbs, the cost price of an apple and so on.. and then you piece them together slowly and painfully to reach your conclusion....
And there's no scope for experiments.
And what's the deal with using fancy words like "model" and "formulation" and "segregation" and "enumerate".. it's like they want to be scientists.... and what's with coming up with bizarre names and formulae for stuff which really is common knowledge... like the SWOT analysis... Duh!! What kind of a moron would go into a business without thinking about what his strengths
and weaknesses... That's the whole IDEA behind starting a business... you realise you have something to offer... so yo put it out there... why do you need bizarre terms like SWOT and PET and PPP to describe something an 8 yr old selling off his father's stationery could tell you...
It's just a way for these people to feel important I guess...

Reminds me of this flashy guy in a Mercedes convertible in a suit who was once driving the New Zealand countryside, when he came up on this sheep farmer grazing his herd. So he stops and tells the farmer "If I tell you exactly ow many sheep you have, will you give me one for free take home with me?"
The farmer reluctantly agrees.
So the flashy kid, pulls out a laptop and he hooks it up to the internet with a portable satellite dish. He types away furiously, flying through search engines, and reams of numbers and NASA's satellite imagery. He then picks up his cell phone, makes a dozen calls and furiously takes notes. Then he opens up his calculator and punches numbers. Finally he prints out a 15 page report with an executive summary from the bubble jet printer in his boot and gives a 10 minute presentation on a portable projector. In conclusion he declares that the farmer has exactly 872 sheep.

The farmer unwillingly agrees that the man is right.

But when the man is abt to drive off with his prize, the farmer stops him asking for a chance to win back his sheep if he correctly guesses the man's profession. The man agrees.

"I bet you are an Arthur Andersen business consultant" the farmer says.

The man is shocked. He wants to know how the farmer could have made a perfect guess like that.

So the farmer says, "simple. Firstly, you came here uninvited. Secondly, you wasted time and money to tell me something I already knew. Thirdly, that's my dog you hae in the back of your car, not a sheep."

2006-03-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

Of all the strangest people out there that I was talking about... I think I have found the one that is singularly, irrefutably THE strangest.

I would have never guessed who that was... I always thought it was Arnab Chakrabarti from Presidency college who chose to take advantage of friend when she was going through the toughest phase of her life..... then I thought it was actually my friend who seemed to let herself get taken advantage of quite easily....

but nope.. they can move over... there is a new kid on the block....

And if that person os not THE singularly, irrefutably strangest person I ever knew.... then I am...

2006-03-19T08:11:00.000-08:00

right... back to blogging after a great deal of self inflicted bodily damage...

Blog roll's been due for an update...

1) Chamki - This is a bit of a discovery of mine... actually other way round... she found me.. not sure how though... can't make the six degrees of separation work... anyway... a really delightful blog.. a very creative person... but different from most other creative people in the sense she really IS creative and original... not pseudo... puts up quick snatches of unrhyming poetry, brilliant little random sketches... photographs etc. A little ditzy, a little brooding... definitely check it out...

2) Tiny Black Cat - Don't know that much abt her really.... probably has been around for a while.. seems to know a lot of ppl... claims to be a non-conformist... but I think she just conforms to non-conformism...

3) Warped Spiral - another bit of a mystery bag... but a good friend of a good friend.. and has also linked me... so she gets a link back...

4) M (treadly softly upon) - now here is a SERIOUSLY intelligent person... I'm not kidding... works along similar lines as I do... quite similar lines... so am definitely very interested in what she has to say... unfortunately she rarely discusses her perosonal life or work on her blog... which is a smart thing to do (didn't I tell you she was smart...) so don't really know much abt her... anyway.... I have a feeling we will run into each other one day... in the near future (It's almost certainity considering the size of the world we inhabit... lung research)... and we won't even know it was us... isn't that neat?

BTW: In future if anybody links my site, do leave a message on my blog.... coz you will get a link back...

2006-03-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

Whoops! How did that get in there...

2006-03-14T23:05:00.000-08:00

There are some seriously weird people out there... almost all of them have blogs...

Strangely, I seem to know most of them.... Some I knew from before... other new weirdos get in touch with me and want to make friendship... Other poeple, who I have known for a while, have conversed and broken bread with, will suddenly turn out to be complete weirdos themselves...

Has the world gone crazy or has someone switched my cool water knockoff for Axe/Lynx: weirdo flavour?

Watched "american psycho" today on a friend's recommendation... great movie... I like movies with weirdos... doing a study of sorts... watching as many weirdo movies as possible... American Psycho... Natural Born Killers.... Copy Cat... Saw... Peeping Tom... Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)... Taxi Driver... Henry...Monster...so on..

2006-03-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

Suzy: So do they use CO2 in their cell cultures?
Me: CO2???
Suzy: Carbon Dioxide.
Me: DUUUUH!

I really should stop duhhh-ing people who could destroy me.

2006-03-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

Just realised...

I submitted a report on friday with the title

Construction of a promoterless gusA gene suitable for transcriptional analysis.

Except I didn't write "promotorless"... I worte topless....

You reckon I could pass that off as a typo?

2006-03-11T19:28:00.000-08:00

Have been reading some of the Blanknoise project blog posts.... Mostly by people I know by association.... I'm sure you've read some too... considering that every woman has posted something and 80% of bloggers I know (you know) and women... they are a little hard to miss...
And frankly... wow... the stuff's really moving, really strong, and makes a real impact... even more so because they are real... And people out there are such great writers... and there is something about personal tragedy and shocking experiences that makes them better writers still... But seriously... excellent read..

It was all quite surprising to me I guess because I have never really seen public sexual harrassment, molestation or even eve-teasing close up front. I always sort of believed that such things happened in B grade Hindi movies... the type the sweepers used to watch on DD on a Saturday evening...

Probably because a)I am not a woman and b) I lead a pretty sheltered life as a kid... I don't think I rode on a bus, metro or autorickshaw till I was about 19... I didn't really have much interaction with girls either in the sense that I had no sisters or cousin sisters. When I did interact with other girls my age socially, well, this is not something they like talking about now is it? Which is why for me the problem didn't exist... which is why when I did see it happening first hand... I didn't know how to react... and probably reacted in a completely inappropriate manner..

1) This was probably in the last year of school... just outside Woodlands hospital... I had been there to see my grandfather and was walking to the main road to catch a cab... when I saw this guy trying to grab this girl... the girl kept pushing him away and he kept trying to hug her. She slept him but that seemed to have no effect at all. So the girl was feebly yelling for help... there were other people around. Maybe half a dozen or so... and they were all staring... but nobody did anything... somebody yelled "stop him. stop him." And I was closest... so I hust tapped the guy on the shoulder and said something like "come on. What are you doing. Stop it."
Immediately the guy spins around and slams his fist into my jaw. It felt like a bomb had gone off inside my mouth. My ears were buzzing. And everything swam around for a few seconds. But worst of all my ego was bruised. Or something like that. Which would explain what happened next. With all my strength I kicked the guy in the groin. And it wasn't pretty. Considering that I was about 50% taller than him and 150% heavier than him. The guy sort of collapsed. Went to a kneeling position. At which point I grabbed his head and slammed it against my raised knee. Twice. I hit it so hard that I had to walk with a limp for the rest of the week. And that was it. The guy went down for good. He lay there in the foetal posistion. And I think I kicked him a couple of times. Until someone grabbed me from behind and I snapped out. The guy wasn't moving much. A steady stream of blood flowed out of his mouth and nose. I thought I had died. But then he started choking on his own blood and spit.
And that's when the peope woke up. I looked around and suddenly there was a crowd strange faces. A dozen. Two dozens. Someone rushed to the guy, trying to help him up. Somebody held my arm in a clamp of grip. And everybody was shouting "what's going on? He killed him. He killed him. Somebody get a doctor. Let's rush him to the hospital. Call the police. Get the fellow who did this." The last comment hit me. Something told me this could end badly. I quickly shook off the guy holding me and scampered away in the confusion. By some strange luck, there was cab filling up on Diesel at the pump on the main road... next to garden cafe. So I managed to get away.
The funny thing is, how peopel react to these situations. A little girl was getting molested and everybody just stood around watching. Most people were probably even enjoying it. It was a show. But when somebody kicks the life out of the pervert, suddenly people wake up. Half the city descends on him. Trying to rescue him.

2) The second one happened on a crowded metro. It was just after I had joined college, and had started using public transport. I still didn't know that they really were a front for some people to get cheap sexual gratification. Two of us guys and another girl had boarded the train. It was packed so the girl was standing a couple of feet from us. When the train braked at Chandni Chowk I saw it. Two other guys. Standing in front of me, who had been making eyes at our female friend suddenly fell over her and grabbed her breasts. Our friend looked upset and gave them a stare. But what struck me was that she was utterly helpless. All she could do was give them a dirty look. And the boys looked like they had won some prize. Smiling and chatting away among themselves. Celebrating some great victory. When the train started, they tried falling over her again, but she quickly manouevered out of the way. At which point, my friend and I decided to do something about it. So I leaned over the guys and whispered into their ears, "If you two try that stunt again, my friend and I will ride on this train until you get off. Then we will get off at the same station. And we will break your arms and throw you over the tracks." To drive the message home, my friend gave one of them a sharp jab in the ribs making him yelp. And he said "Getting poked is not so much fun is it?"
Once again, the fact that we collectively outweighed them by 80kilos also helped I think. It worked. The guys started movign further and further away from us as the train satrted to move. Suddenly we couln't see them anymore. All three of us got off at Kalighat. And surprise, surprise we see the two guys also get off, from the next comaprtment. They take one look at us and turn around and run as fast their legs can carry them. One of the guys slippers break, and takes off the other throws it away but never stops running.

2006-03-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

You have to check this out.. it's too funny

"Borat" is another one of Sacha Cohen's alter ego's. His most famous one being Ali G. Now Borat takes country singing lessons and goes to a typical redneck bar somewhere in USA and starts singing this song. "Throw the Jew down the well." And amazing... everybody joins in! Singing and clapping and swaying to the chorus... throw the jew down the well... Ah Americans. They can't even tell when they are getting their goose boiled.

It reminded me of our heydays. When we used to haunt comedy clubs and made plans to one day come up with an act of our own. Only problem was, none of us were much good at stand up. So we decided to stuff like that. Observational Humour. Reality Humour.

There were five of us. Another Indian lawyer to be. A third generation Egyptian. A 2nd generation Filipino. And a token white guy. As a result, most of our gags were going to centre around multiculturalism and racial stereotyping and so on.

Unfortunately. We didn't do to many. I actually went along to two of them.

1) In the first one, we basically hung around the city and asked people to sign a petition. A petition to build a mosque as part of the riverside development project. It was so hillarious. The Egyptian guy did most of the work. He conjured up a bizarre Arabic accent. We hung around like his lackeys. The white guy wore a suite and signed ppl up. And we only approached white people. It was hillarious. The comments we heard

"It is very broadminded. Maybe a little too broadminded."

"I am not a racist. But I just don't like that kind of people."

"They can build as many mosques as they like. Just not here."

Old lady - "We are not an islamic country"
Us - "But we are a secular country madam."
Old lady - "so no religion should get preference"
Us - "well there is 1 muslim for every 10 christians. But there are 0 mosques to every 176 churches"
Old Lady - "well. That's just too bad!"

"I don't think we should encourage them."

2) The second gag was not as complex. The filipino guy took pictures of his girlfriend. Made a poster of it and we went around asking people to vote for her to become the next Miss Western Australia. We then claimed she had been rejected from the contest adn wanted people to fight for her to be back in. Got a bunch of funny comments as well.
Middle aged woman - "well. She doesn't look very Western Australian does she?"
Filipino guy (in thick fake asian accent) - "she got PR. In March. She western australian. She love beer and beef"
Woman - "see. That's what I mean. She's not really from here is she?"
Us: So madam you are?
Woman - Ofcourse I am.
Us: Ah. Funny. You don't look like an aborigine.

The guys did a few more. Like the Egyptian guy tried to join the Australia First Party (which is realya well disguised white supremacist group). The letters they sent back and forth are positively hillarious.

The Egyptian Guy and my Indian friend showed up in a catholic church in Islamic gear and wanted to join the Carol Choir. Wish I saw that one. Was apparently their best gag ever. At some stage the Egyptian Guy tried to sing Holy Night like a Qawalli... which finally got the kicked out.

Ahh.. those were the days. Don't know where those guys are now. My Indian pal moved to melbourne. As a result I lost touch with the entire group. Would be fun if I could track one of them down and get copies of the few tapes we made.

2006-03-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

My first tag and it had to be this dorky... and I tagged by two ppl in 24 hrs....

so here goes... my perfect woman... pardon the fantastic cliches... this is not like me... some of this might be made up... others not... you judge for yourself...

1. Looks - not important at all.... if you ever saw me you'd know why... but obviously I don't think I could go out with someone grotesque... and I like people who take care of themselves... not extreme and plastic surgery... but not give up and walk around with a pencil in your hair either... Must not have regular odour issues... that's about all I ask...

2. Ambitious, Driven and Goal oriented - don't like girls who sort of just wander through life... making easy choices... shrug.. I don't know I don't care type... I like strong women... lots of drive and aims and career minded.

3. Must know how to cook... now I am not being a male chauvinist here.. coz I cook.. and I think everybody should know how to cook... I don't like the posh chicks who have never cracked an egg in their life... must have a taste for good food and wine and so on...

4. Must not smoke... can't stand smokers... can never be with one... someone who has weed occasionally is probably ok... but not a crackhead ofcourse... but definitely no smoking... not even a little

5. Must be a good balance between adventurous and stable... I like trying new things (in lots of ways).... it would be really lousy if she always became a stick in the mud everytime I wanted to go bungee jumping... but at the same time I don't like the type who always live in the moment... don't know where they are now or where thay are going to be in 5 minutes time...annoys me

6. Must not be high maintenance... the whole "you don't spend enough time with me" crap... must understand the realities of life.... Hate the impractical princess types... must be able to rough iut once in a while... must be able to face life...

7. Must like dogs... music... movies... travelling...wine... atleast two of those..

8. Must not be pretentious. I hate pretentious people in every faculty. Must not be those princess types. The whole "that-don't-impress-me-much" type... I like people who can see the easy beauty in things... appreciate and love the little details of life...Have the courage to turn her back to the whole "keeping up with the Jones's" philosophy and say... "No. That's not me. THIS is me. THIS is what I like." To have the courage to just say "wow" and "I'm happy" instead of feeling obliged to come up with a wise crack everytime to disguise that...

ok... I tag Sphinx, Absolutist, Shobhik, UI..

Ok i DOn't know 8 ppl...

2006-03-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

It appears that all the younger people I know are a bit weird...

There is ofcourse Rahul... a high school graduate to be... Now he introduces himself as Raoul... Like the footballer... Spanish Porn Star.. that Raoul... which is ok... modifying your name slightly so that it rolls of the tongue a little better is perfectly acceptable...Ask Shawn or Bill... But this guy takes it to the next level... he actually SIGNS Raoul... in his school report cards his name shows up his Raoul... that's official... that's as good as an official name change... Raoul! I don't get it... Trading one exotic minority ethnicity name for another even more exotic and minority name just defies my bounds of logic...
I think I will change my name to Bah Ling...

Then there is this other kid who calls me up thoroughly excited that they are going to show him on TV. On the 6:00 pm news... so I tune in and watch carefully... and sure enough... there he is... The featured person in a report about Obesity among Primary School Students.... 3 minutes after that he rings me up again... bursting with excitement.....I seriously didn't know what to say.... "Well done. We're so proud of you. Keep it up!" ?!?!?!?!?!?!??

2006-03-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

So the oscars... what was that all about?

Uma Thurman was looking good. God bless her. Atleast she had a decent dress this time. Jennifer Garner almost fell... damn...almost. Jessica Alba can't read.

But what was with the awards...

It's hard out here for a pimp???? That's a song? That wins a prize? Maybe the token black sympathy award.

And Reese won... good old fashioned american girl with the slapped in forehead and the cheerleader smile... her parents who were "always proud of her" and her grandmother who did something or the other... playing a "true woman"... a celebrity country singer married in love with a drunk and dopie legend... sure... not the middle aged transexual mom... I dunno why... but I just hate Reese... I actually liked her in the movie... but can't stand her as a person... feel like smacking her triangular face...

nice..

and best picture goes to this movie which is supposed to be racism... but isn't about anything really... just a mish mash of rather tame short stories with some REALLY forced connections... it's like a movie that tried to be Magnolia or Pulp Fiction... but didn't make it... sorta skirts around the issues of race.... no drama... no climax... nothing confrontational at all...very hollywood fashion to be honest... a movie that I have already forgotten to be honest.... and suspect will forget even more by this time next year...and has possibly one of the most unoriginal movie titles of all time.

And memoirs of a geisha picks up all the art and costume awards... there is nothing remotely authentic abt that movie... the actors aren't japanese.. te location isn't japanese... the settings are wrong... the timelines are wrong... the art direction jumps around from the 1600's to the 1920's in a matter of minutes... it's like "Indiana Jones: The temple of doom" set in Japan...

Atleast there was Jon Stephens adding a dash of political incorrectness to the evening... loved that "if we bring down this Oscar statue do you reckon we could have a democracy in the academy?"

Is it just me... or is there right wing conservative christian propaganda everywhere these days...
probably just me...

2006-03-05T07:42:00.000-08:00

Heard this song a long time ago... as a kid... on Dad's LP....didn't really make much sense at the time... but there was something... haunting abt it... a deep an ancient sadness

Recently purchased a Billy Holiday CD... from the only place you find Billy Holiday CD's these days... the under $5 bin at KMart... Strangely it had the same song on it... remembered it instantly... That seem feeling of sadness... and pain...

The song is called Strange Fruit.... but there was something more to it... which I couldn't possibly understand it as a below 7-10 yr old... got the lyrics down... read it and re-read it... heard it and re-heard it...

well here it is... strange fruit.. I was thinking maybe I'd put up th eBIlly Holiday version on Radio Blog... infact I thought I'd do a Jazz Vocal themed radio blog... but that'd probably be really unpopular... what kind of weirdo listens to Jazz anyway? Bunch of fat ladies singing slow..

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

2006-03-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

Ok... so I don't understand this... apparently it happens to a lot of people... but this was the first time it happened to me.
Some random person from Yahoo starts buzzing me and asking strange questions.. I thought these were spam bots... but apparently not... so I replied... like you probably know by now... if someone annoys me... I annoy them back... I don't hang up... I make them hang up...
So we had a little fun!... Here's the convo...

vaasu_22: HAI
vaasu_22: ASL PLZ
vaasu_22: where r u
erebus: why?
vaasu_22: r u there
erebus: yeah
vaasu_22: asl plz
erebus: u first
vaasu_22: 24/m/
vaasu_22: urs
vaasu_22: b fast
erebus: sorry...
erebus: m too
erebus: not gonna work
vaasu_22: so waht
erebus: not gay...
erebus: 23/m/aus
vaasu_22: let us try ra
erebus: ok
erebus: u wanna make friendship?
vaasu_22: ya
vaasu_22: what do u do
vaasu_22: ur body stats plz
erebus: body stats???
erebus: dunno... never measured my body
erebus: i thought chicks did that
vaasu_22: just ht/wt
erebus: ok...
erebus: 175 cm
erebus: 90kg...
erebus: muscular build
erebus: balding
erebus: beard
vaasu_22: woh
erebus: any more details??
vaasu_22: Misc... details
erebus: like what?
erebus: I can do 35 min on the X trainer
erebus: at 70 rpm
vaasu_22: dont u know
erebus: no... dont normally do this....
vaasu_22: cha
vaasu_22: shall I believe
erebus: what details u after? sphincter diameter?
vaasu_22: ya
vaasu_22: ur likings
erebus: oooh... likings...
erebus: let's see...
erebus: fitness.. cooking
erebus: theater...
erebus: movies... jazz
vaasu_22: tell ra
vaasu_22: what???
erebus: porn
erebus: u like porn?
erebus: u there?
vaasu_22: ha tell ra
vaasu_22: what do u do???
erebus: i am a medical research scientist
erebus: u?
erebus: lemme guess... model?
vaasu_22: why da
erebus: just... u seem to have a lot of time
vaasu_22: u mean???
erebus: never mind... I dunno know what I mean most of the time
erebus: so what DO yo do?
vaasu_22: guess
erebus: hmmm.... a zonal officer for a box distribution comany
vaasu_22: what a poor guess da
erebus: close?
vaasu_22: what close??
vaasu_22: too far
erebus: ok... art student then
erebus: will there be a prize if I guess correctly
erebus: will you like give me your first born child or something?
vaasu_22: ya
vaasu_22: def'ly
erebus: btw: My name is Rumpelstilskin
vaasu_22: what????????????
erebus: never mind... fallout of a classical education
erebus: 24... u in IT by chance
erebus: everybody that age seems to be in IT these days
vaasu_22: sure??????
erebus: are u in IT
erebus: try answering this question without another question
erebus: see how that works out
vaasu_22: right ra...
erebus: oooh
erebus: so u work in one of those big multinational IT firms
erebus: doing the work they wouldnt get an AMerican to do coz he has too much self respect
erebus: which one? TCS? Satyam? IBM?
vaasu_22: Mphasis
erebus: ah... nice
erebus: u posted in India?
vaasu_22: ya
vaasu_22: where rt u
erebus: australia
vaasu_22: k
vaasu_22: whatelse
BUZZ!!!
vaasu_22: i want ur pic da
erebus: whatelse???
erebus: pic???
erebus: don't have one handy
vaasu_22: if u r interested only
vaasu_22: plz da
erebus: problem is... i dont have a digital camera
vaasu_22: one pic is enough
erebus: too broke
erebus: lesse
vaasu_22: what to do
erebus: I cant send for some reason
vaasu_22: why dear
vaasu_22: plz
erebus: wont attach
vaasu_22: plz dear
erebus: trying sweetheart... wont work
erebus: you're the IT technician... u fix it
vaasu_22: what is the problem
erebus: i can't press "send file"
erebus: comes greyed out

There are some pretty seriously twisted people in the IT business in India... probably even using the company's broadband connection... on company time... searching for more weirdos like him and trying to convert straight men to homosexuality with his suave charm and eloquent language...

2006-03-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

What a day!

Woke up at 6 AM.... haven't woken up at 6 AM in forever....then DROVE out to the city... that must be some kind of suicide mission.... 3/4 of the city's excuse for a population drives to the city at exactly the same time.

Anyway... got there... and my supervisor was waiting for me....

First order of business in the day... strip. No cubicles, no screens, not even a towel. This must be how they do it in prison. Strip, down to your very undies, surrounded by a bunch of other men and put on gruesome blue cover-alls. Wish they'd told me this before. Would have worn my least tattered pair. In between, spray some strange disinfectant powder all over yourself. For some reason, undoing buttons and laces on the coveralls becomes a hell of a lot more challenging when you are standing in your underwear, and covered in white powder. Anyway. That was... interesting.

So then we go into Operation Theatre. And there is this guy lying on the table, with another smug chap jamming a pipe down his throat. Whistling. Never stops whistling. Then I watch as someone takes a mini toilet brush (very mini) and scrapes tissue from the inside of his lungs. I dissolve it in saline. Then we go out and have, what was possibly, the worst cup of coffee I have ever tasted. When we come back, there is a new guy with a pipe down his throat. More scrapings. Then they shove a mini pair of forceps and pull out nice lumps of lung tissue. I dissolve it.

Then we go out and perform the whole strip tease ritual reverse and with a few bonus kinks. This time we strip to the undies, my supervisor and I, and walk through this place where we are hit by a pwerful stream of air, and some volatile liquid. There's something very peculiar abt that. Two of us, my boss and I, standing next to each other almost nude, getting hosed, talking about research. I don't think I spoke much though. Not until I had fumbled with my jeans some more and finally put them on.

Anyway. Then head off to Princess Margaret Hospital, with the fresh samples. Except. I can't find my car. I could have sworn I came up one level from the ground and parked it in the complex. Except when I take the life to level 1 it's not there. Walk the entire massive expanse twice, in my ugly tight boots which I had worn to impress people on my first day (fat load of good that did... walked around in weird green paper slippers). Then try level 2 and walk around there as well. Finally a tree looks familiar, so I go near there and press my remote lock button. That sets off the alarm (thought that function was invented just to annoy me... apparently not). And I realise that it's somewhere below me. So I run down the stairs. Apparently, the first level is called "McIver Street Rail Station Level"... that's where I parked. The level above is level 1. If anyone can explain the logice behind this, there is a cash prize.

The samples were fast degrading. So I drive over. Not a single parking spot in the entire region of PMH. Drive around the same streets half a dozen times. Driving up and down, one way streets, taking a 2km detour to get to a spot 150 m behind me. Finally park on the 12th level of another complex (carefully note the level number)... strange... why wasn't this one full? Guess. Lift doesn't work.

Fianlly get the samples in. The cell viablity has fallen rapidly. They ask me why I had arrived there at 11:15 even though the last sample was taken at 10:00 AM. Mumbled something. They are probably going to ask my boss. Must have a reason ready.

Finally finished there. Had another 30 min on the parking meter. So had lunch at this gourmet Irish cafe. Where the cashier had a strange way of remembering orders... no numbers or notes. She just remembered faces. And instructed the waitresses (see pic). Uncanny. "Chicken wrap... Big Guy in Hat outside. Latte and Tuna Salad. Bald guy in suit and middle aged ladywith the nice bag.... corner sofa." Had a weird roll with mango chicken and kiwi fruit in it. And an Irish cream coffee of which I spilt a substantial amount on my trousers.

Went to uni from there for evening management class. Bought a boutique bottle of Ginger Beer from a speciality store on the way. Little personal treat. Enjoy it in class and rub it in everybody else's face. The professor asked me to put it away, probably thinking it was booze. The guy is a tough marker so didn't argue. It got all hot and flat and tasted horrible 2 hours later.

What a day. Will try to get it over as soon as I can. See you tomorrow... if there is one.

2006-02-27T07:08:00.000-08:00

Aaragorn once told Gimli, there is always hope.
Somebody (guess who) retold that to me.

And I'm going to stick with that thought. It's not going to work. But we'll try. We must. Hope. It's all you ever have right?

2006-02-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

Ok... this is freaking me out... people I don't want reading my blog... ARE reading my blog...
It's scary... a person came to me today and told me he had read my blog... scared me... I could have very well written about him.. infact I think I did....

I checked my site stats and there are a number of people who have visited my site after searching for my first name on google... why? Why would someone google MY name? Seriously... it's creepy... at first I thought maybe it was people like that weird female on my Yahoo list who insisted I was her Tamil friend.... mistaken identity.. but NO! These people, atleast some of them, were actually looking for me... and they found my blog...

and that's not easy to do... you know why? Because I googled my own first name, and the blog actually shows up on the very LAST page.... the LAST... after 12 pages... now not only did someone google my name, they actually sifted through 12 pages of irrelevance to get to my blog...

I DON'T WANT THEM TO!

I need to fix this... Any ideas?

On the subject... the thing that keep smy blog going... really is Srin's blog... she can hate me all she wants but she is still doing me favours unknowingly... Isn't she brilliant or what? some 58% of my total hits are referreed from her site... some 20% from musicalmosquito.blogspot.com... a lot of the keyword searches that send people to my site are "srin","srin's blog","srin pics", "srin JU" and so on... it's uncanny...

I am not sure if you noticed... but I used the words "srin" and "blog"... now to just sit back and watch the traffic roll in as people google for her... hehehe

2006-02-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

Don't watch Boston Legal...

It's just wretched, wretched right wing propaganda...

I used to like the show. Great actors, great characters. Funny yet dramatic. Nice viewing for 10:30 pm on a tuesday.

But the last couple of episodes absolutely shocked me.

The first one was about intelligent design. A headmaster had sacked some teachers because they refused to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory. Now I thought it would really be replay of the Dover trial... but nooooo! In the Boston Legal version, the Intelligent Design supporters actually win the case!! I was shocked! What are they trying to say here...
Then the very next week... it'as about the documentary "outfoxed". A school prinicpal after seeing the documentary bans FOX from school TV's. Because it promotes separatism and right wing extremism. So the student sues him for violation of free speech.... And guess what? THe student wins!! Not only that... Liberalists are slapped a little for beeing extremists as well.
Then there was another one where a cop tortures the brother of a kidnapping suspect... and gets sued... and then there is the whole debate about torture and its legality and broad hints are made at Iraq.... and surprise, surprise... the cop wins!!

I am not watching this show again. It used to be good. Don't know what happened. I feel totally betrayed.... don't watch this nazi show...

2006-02-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

I have corroboration... this is not funny anymore...

Nikhil got in touch with Nadiya... or the other way round actaully.. she's not happy...
"why did you have to break up with me like this! You could have done it like a gentleman! Can we meet up and talk about it? No? You don't care. You'll regret this! You dog! And your cronies as well. I'll see to it that you all regret it."

Then she got on her broom and flew away into the horizon....

2006-02-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

I think there is something positively disturbing going on...

My mother might be setting me up with someone....

Hmmm... more on this after sufficient corroboration...

2006-02-20T01:43:00.000-08:00

Some people thought I was just blowing steam in the last post... jerk who likes finding faults with other people... who died and made him the great-know-it-all-.... whatever...

But I assure you there is more to it than that.

Now I may have mentioned this to you before. I mention this pretty often. But there is this theory that fascinates me.

It goes like this.

Evolution happens in small groups. That's how it's always worked. Small groups of organisms fight to survive in an otherwise hostile environment and they have to suddenly get smarter or die. See evolution is not really about growing a long neck or suddenly standing up. Evolution is almost always about getting smarter. It's about RECOGNISING the need to grow a longer neck. RECOGNISING the need to stand up. The evolution of an organism is almost always the evolution of its intelligence.

Now coming back to the small groups. Now this is a fact. There is good evidence to support this and if you think about it, it'll make sense to you too. But without the mumbo-jumbo the fact of life is this. Evolution works best in small to mid sized, isolated groups. You put 50 squirrels on an island, they evolve about twice as fast as the island next door with 5000 squirrels. 50 squirrels have to work harder to survive. That's stimulus. Each individual squirrel experiences this stimulus and responds to it. Thus becoming smarter. Thus evolving.
However, on the island with 5000 squirrels, the stimulus is dissipated. Maybe about 50 squirrels at any time to do anything creative, and other squirrels just sort of copy them. So the squirrels still survive obviously, but they are not stimulated. As a result they don't get smarter. They don't evolve.

Now we were just talking about 50 and 5000 squirrels on an islands. What if we put 5 BILLION in one place? Well, in that case evolution virtually stops. It's a fact.

But then that's exactly what the internet does, doesn't it? It puts us all, the billions of squirrels on one giant island, just arms length from each other. And I wonder what that means to us in terms of intelligence, and evolution. Not that it matters, coz we will all be dead far before we can observe any of the effects. This kind of evolution takes thousands of years. But sometimes, I see things that make me think... yup... this is happening... right now. Think about it. If you spend maybe a dull afternoon following one blog from each other... don't you get this overwhelming sense that you are reading the same thing over and over again? That's what I was trying to point out. The tremendous sense of deja vu about blogs..... and pretty much most things on the internet. Somehow, sometimes every blog looks like, reads alike. Same kind of people, writing about the same kind of things, discussing the same kind of music, using the same template. Now don't get me wrong... I'm not saying EVERY single person has to come up with a work of art for every post. No... originality, and creativity is NOT equatable to ART. Art, poetry, literature are indeed extensions of originality... but what I am talking about is the originality of THOUGHT, that exists in every person... or should exist. But if you go blog hopping... you don't see that very often. People are much happier to just sort of BORROW other people's original thoughts and try to put some kind of a spin on it. That's why you get 2635 (is that right J.A.P?) reviews of RDB. Not anything else... people could have easily reviewed Brokeback mountain or Munich or Capote... but no... it was RDB because we are 5 billion squirrels on one island. People do things just because they see other people do it. Have you ever noticed the speed at which a thought flies across the internet. Like people telling jokes they read in forwards. They are not the best jokes... but they are easy.... coz you don't have to think that way. You need some kind of an idea, for anything, be it blogging or nuclear fission reactors, you don't bother to come up with one on your own. You just see what other people around you are doing and basically do a bit of this and a bit of that mixed with probably a dash of your own spirit. And you put it out as originality. And that's the problem. We are just too lazy to be original in thought. I mean the evidence of this all over. TV, movies, music, art, science... you have to have seen it.
Think about it. Google might just be making you dumber.

I know I know. I'm sorry. It's really hot. I've had a couple of beers. First day of university. Was up till 3 AM last night. Had BRUNCH. I'm rambling... forgive me

2006-02-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

If I see another one of these... I'll scream...

1) Rang de Basanti review - Seriously people.... get over it now... It's just a movie. Not an exceptional one at that. Decent ideas, helf decent execution. That's it. Why would the whole world what you thought of it. The whole world didn't care. Of all the movies in the world.... excellent ones playing RIGHT NOW... you pick this one to have an enormous debate about. Seriously. It's over. Stop it now.

2) The Minima Black template - Ok... I understand not everyone has the time or the interest to come up with something original.... but even then why this one??? This has to be the single most boring and ugly template around. Ok I take that back... It's puke coloured brother is worse... But even then... It's just black. I don't understand it. What can possibly appeal to you so much about black, green and grey. 85% of the people out there (if not more) use this exact template. You flip through blogs one at a time and suddenly you feel like you have gone colour blind... black, green, grey..... come on... change it... use a stock template but use a better one... somebody... muster up the courage to leave the flock...

3) Black and white photographs - Why do people think that black and white photographs are somehow more artistic? There is an art to taking Black and white photos just like there is an art to taking colour photos. But here is the rule... if you want take a black and white photo.... you HAVE to take it in Black and white... you HAVE to use a black and white camera. Because a black and white camera (or even a colour camera in black and white mode) sees things differently. And you have to compose black and white pictures differently from colour pictures. Just taking random record shots on your digital camera, and then hitting "convert to grayscale" in paintshop doesn't add ANY extra artistic crediblity to the photo.... trust me. It's just pretentious.

4) Blog thing quizzes - These I hate so much... you go to people's sites and they have the most ridiculous quiz results up. Somebody actually had TEN of these in a row once!!! Seriously... what's the point. It doesn't tell me anything at all. The first couple of times it was funny. But not anymore! Now it's just a ridiculous waste of space. It's the same stupid quiz, everybody takes it and just posts the same stupid results up.... Does anybody REALLY care what your inner hair colour is... think about it...

5) Lyrics - Ok... this one I just don't understand.... why post lyrics? You didn't write 'em. You didn't "discover" them. You didn't hit pause & replay a million times to take them down. So why are you posting it? I feel like sharing songs with people from time to time... so I PLAY it for them... on radio... but what does posting lyrics to a coldplay song possibly serve... even the whole "song of the moment" thing.... Where do you expect it'll go?
"Song of the moment, Yellow: Coldplay"
"Ah. Good song."
So....???

2006-02-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

Radio Blog finally updated!

Sorry people. You must have been getting pretty sick of it by now. Just haven't had the time to pick out songs and upload them and stuff.

Anyway. Here it is.

Didn't know what theme to use. So I basically opened up my iTunes and copied the "most played songs" according to the list. So in a way these are the songs I have been listening to most often. Not over all time.... just recently... because the most played count resets every time I update iTunes.
Strangely it's all really mellow stuff. Hmm... Guess I have been a little mellow of late. Anyway. It's a strange mix. All over the place. But that's what you get!

2006-02-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

See... this is one of things I enjoy about living without the mother... cooking for myself. It's great! I enjoy cooking. Call me pansy or whatever. I really do. Not the regular everyday mach daal torkari... but occasionally... something nice... something that suits my taste... The whole experience is really calming... really relaxing... pour yourself a nice glass of something... put on the radio... and off you go. And I have the whole "play by the ear" policy when it comes to cooking. Like Indian Classical music as opposed to western classical. Basically see what's in the fridge... pull some stuff out at random... then start throwing things onto the pan... somewhere down the line get some ideas... pull out some spices and sauces... throw them in.. taste... see what's missing... throw that in... salt... water... reduce reduce reduce... and voila! all done!! If it doesn't work... there's always tomorrow.

Ever since mom's been gone we have survived on take-outs, stuff from 3 weeks ago frozen, and other people's charity... Today was the first chance I really got to cook. Nothing fancy, Chicken and vegie stirfry (which I had to convert into sort of gravy because I wanted to eat it with rice)... A cauliflower medley (with carrots, peas... some chilli... some oregano... some red pepper)... and plain rice with a few sprigs of lemon rice and kaffa lime leaves thrown in for fragrance... and some left over daal... It was nice... Tomorrow.. Fish... thai style!

Now I'd better get some coconut milk...

Oooh... looks tasty don't it?

Chopping vegies... rustic style

Chicken Stir-fry gravy tasting... if it doesn't make me go blind... then it's good...

The first course.. cauliflower medley..

The father can't wait....

2006-02-17T02:01:00.000-08:00

Heard one of the funniest bush jokes in a while...

"So when Bush came over to Australia we all went to this big dinner at Fraser's restaurant. And there was this really buxom, really pretty waittress taking orders. She bent over near Bush and asked what he would like. And Bush went "Can I have a quickie please?". The waittress was really offended. She just slapped him and stormed off. And Bush was puzzled and going "What happened? What did I do?

So I leant over and told him "George. It' pronounced quiche."

2006-02-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

So... in my endless pursuit of intellecrual upliftment, I actually forced myself to go see a play. Imagine that. Even opening night and everything. A friend of a friend has links to the theatre company so he got us cheap tickets on opening from his quota.

The play was "The Odyssey" produced by the Black Swan Theatre Company, as part of the Perth Arts Festival. It is basically a modernised and highly modified retelling of The Odyssey. But to be honest it resembles Homer's original no more than "O brother where art thou". It's all there in spirit... the cyclops, the sirens, the lotus eaters.... the underlying themes are pretty close to the original as well... but it's all been brilliantly interpreted.

Frankly I loved it. The stage was just MASSIVE (check out the picture), there were a tone of actors, and there was music and dance and horror and violence and nudity. It was just spectacular. But it wasn't a magic show either. The whole thing was put together very artistically. The main focus was on the theme of war and survival and the quest for immortality (as in the poem)... and even though it is based on a work written thousands of years ago the whole thing was put into a brilliantly contemporary context. You could relate to every bit of it. Visually it was stunning. The stage was a giant rotating disc, and it moved almost constantly and the effect of that... was just brilliant.... really gave you a sense of time passing and change. Overall the theme of change and time was brilliantly done with lights and special effects showing night and day and moving from one place to another. There were no curtains as you would expect and scenes just seemed to weave into one another... brilliant.

I don't know much about arts and stuff as I clarified before. But this is the kind of theatre I like. Original, engrossig, thrilling, moving and overall terrific entertainment but deeply thoguht provoking as well. Not the kind of bizarro psycho-abstractist by-antels-for-antels kind of stuff that is popular among most people these days.

It's really something to see. They are going to tour with it I believe next year. Don't know how many places they'll go, because it's a big expensive production. But if it comes anywhere near you, definitely, definitely see it.

2006-02-15T01:29:00.000-08:00

So I bought myself a copy of yesterday's Herald Sun. There's a great money saving tip... always buy your newspaper one day later... cost a fraction. And face it... you really just want to read the comics and sports and movie news sections anyway... what difference does reading it a day later make?

Anyway.... I was flipping through the Valentine's Day messages. And boy... some of them are just priceless...

Not your usual "roses are red/violets are blue/ I rooted your sister/ now I'll root you" or "You are my love/My little white dove"... these are something else...
So here is a fair bouquet I selected for you guys. Accompanied by a few words from myself. Every single on'es genuine. You can look it up...

A+ - To the Special One. Love you
Bud. In a category all of your
own. More important than
friends and acquaintances.
Grin. The only one who can
order me around. And yes you, I
did touch you at the tennis.
Smiles _ James.

There is something decidedly disturbing about this... can't put my finger on it.

A. _ My darling beautiful baby
girl, always number one. I love
you. Be my Valentine. _ B.

I am not sure comparing your valentine to number one is a good idea

AAAAAAAAAA TO THE ONE
SECURITY GUARD
I saw last year, I cant forget the
way you looked at me and I
looked at you. I hope the day will
come when we can finally meet.
_ From an Admirer.

This is so specific.... Outside the Alice Springs Heritage Agriculture Museum, the security guard 72 yr old Mr. Dave Smith was sitting quietly keeping his watchful eye on the museum's contents, making sure nobody touched anything, when he suddenly reads this. We can't be sure whether he died of an heart attack, ingesting his coffee too quickly or from misfiring his 303 rifle into his buttocks.

ADAM HILL
I love you so much, I wish I could
find the words to describe how
happy you make me feel. Thank
you for giving me butterflies.
Love _ Caz xx

A girl gave me butterflies once.... mostly it was her cooking.

AF
HOWAPPY Balentine Day! I nub
u more dan wordth can say
(eben when youre nawty). Lots
and lots of Lub always and
foweba, your Cowatt (+ lewsh)

Hmm... you know.... you really shouldn't profess your love for somebody on paper when you're that drunk. If there's one thing we have learned from Ms. Spears is that..

AGENT-RUSSELL
My poem too rude, my big guns
too crude! I wanted to play some
games in the nude! Despite my
best efforts, through anguish
and pain, I hope this last
message gets past that
Lorraine! Luv ya Dork! Bean.

HAHAHA... this one rocks... "my big guns".. he has more than one...

ALAN WHITE
A girl can get very hungry
waiting for that dinner
invitation to materialise!
_ Kate (from the MCG)

Ahhh... the cornerstone of every succesful relationship... desperation... and trying to date strangers you meet at a cricket match.

ALAN/EDDIE
Of Sunbury. Longtime love.
Need mobile number again.

What's with the two names? Alan/Eddie... can't be the same guy... either she is casting a wide net or she has forgotten the name of her love...

ALLEGRA
Ive lost my number,
can I have yours?
Love _ Jazzman X

I have lost MY number???? Come again... how does someone lose their own number?

ANTZ PANTZ
U had me @ "Bout 3 min.
Still nuff time 4 u 2 bolt ":)
Love u muchly xxxxooo
_ Inga und da chickens

There are so many levels to this one... "had me at 3 min"= I am easy.... "still nuf time for u to bolt"=he dumped her OR he dumped somethign else too quickly... "Inga und da chickens"= there is more than one person sending this... it's a whole group... like a team or something

CATHY
Would you prefer football,
movies or a picnic? _ Nigel

Ooooh Boy! Dude. Football? On Valentine's Day.... you reaaaaally know women don't you?

BOETA ``MOMO'''' PATAGONIA
The story of Bunson Bunny
falling in love is about the
pursuit of backwardsies in
Momoland; amid the dangerous
bung bungs and jabbies. With
support from boom boom and
morning kissies, this small
Bunson will prevail.
Love you always _ Momo

I had to save this one for last.... it's just fantastic.... "in pursuit of backwardsies"..."bung bungs and jabbies".... I think I'll frame this one...

2006-02-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

So... it's Valentine's Day... This undoubtedly the most overhyped annual day. I mean surely. You need a day to say I love you? What kind of love is that? As if you don't buy enough gifts and flowers and concert tickets throughout the year to make up for stupid stuff you do... but now you need yet another occasion to buy more gifts and flowers.

Went to the university to pay my fees. The cashier's office was decorated with hearts and red balloons!! They were giving heart shaped candies to every person. I mean.... what? The cashier's office at the university. What is possibly romantic about the cashier's office and queing up for parking permits and fees payments? Don't believe me look at the pics.

The shopping malls had ofcourse gone crazy. Check out the one below...

The way it's going V-day is going to be bigger than christmas. A lots of shops are actually quite dissapointed at not being able to attract more people to their products for V-day... so they are thinking up some approaches to their advertising and marketing... here are some samples

Say it with Broccoli.

Nothing says "I love you" like Ham.

Give him a hint. Give him a broom.

You know she deserves a REAL sausage.

Rat poison... just in case.

KFC. The only thing missing is U.

If anybody cares... this is how I spent my valentine's day.... A schnitzel, yesterday's chinese food, and a bottle of my favourite cheap wine. I love me... atleast today I'm going to pretend to.....

2006-02-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

Here's another one I remembered....

"What is 2+2"

presi: A coalition.
IIT engineers: Somewhere between 3.995 and 4.005
JU engineers: Somewhere between 3.6 and 4.4
JUDE: Poe-sitive 4 (*this one I just made up*)
Xavier's: 5
Bhaggu: Wait. Let me get my designer calculator.

2006-02-13T02:37:00.000-08:00

One of the differences between JU and presi and Xavier...
In a most unintellectual fashion we used to sit over momos and come up with these jokes... Alas! We knew little about Poe, Poe-try or Poe-litics...

Presi people: We think we are the centre of the world....
JU people: We KNOW we are the centre of the world
Xavier's people: The world is flat.
Bhaggu: World? Centre? Think? What are those? Who cares? I am going to get my nails done.

2006-02-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Enie Minnie Mynie Mo
Catch an antel by its toe
If it hollers let it go
Enie Minnie Mynie Mo

Initially when I had started this blog (actually the old blog... which is now dead) I had promised to arm you with ways to which you can torment pseudo intellectual bengali university pseudo students... Well I never quite lived up to that promise... Strangely enough today I came across something which reminded me of that promise... and of somethign I had done quite some time ago...

One in a long line of seemingly bizarre decisions was for me to study in Presidency College, Kolkata. Don't exactly know why I did it, but I did. Spent a whole year there. Gave exams and even managed to get a "posthumous" record breaking 88% (but that's another story)...
Anyway... Presidency College... it's a lot like Jadavpur University... except the slight differences ofcourse ( a list of these maybe sometime later)... and nothing like Xavier.

As is often the case, the canteen was the living breathing heart of the college. And the brain. Maybe a bit of the gonads too. The pseudo intellectualism hung so thick in the air you could it with a knife. The floor was literaly littered with circular plans for world domination, other people's dignity and cigarette butts.

Needless to say I stayed away from there. As much as I could. One day out of hunger and desperation bought a chicken roll with an extra helping of diarrhea.

But people kept pulling me back there from time to time... so I went... tried not to say much...

But then I found out about the poetry club...
Mostly headed by English and Benali Hons. students... it was a place for "the meeting minds, free exchange and a genuine appreciation of poetry and the arts". Basically it was a bunch of jobless people sitting together, reading out bits from their favourite poetry and then waiting for somebody to say "that was rubbish" which would be the perfect excuse to launch into a delightful argument. It served one purpose mainly
People who were not in the traditional intellectual discplines of study (namely eng or beng. hons.) could show that they were JUST AS intellectual as the rest of them (if not more) and that they thoroughly deserved the piece of Presidency canteen furniture he was sitting on.

So I was suddenly thrown into this game of organised intellectual one upmanship... at the deep end. Like a pretty boy in a prison I just tried to keep my head down and not draw attention to myself. People would bring verses from the romantics to Ketaki Dyson. Least of all, you could try and bring in a few couplets from an obscure (and deservedly so) Dylan song and tear it to shreds. Then they woudl read it. The unwritten rule was that it would have to be something "different"... something people didn't know.... or your take on it would have to be different... but it could not be something from someone nobody knew... bottomline...it had to be a "find"...

Anyway... after hanging out for a while and trying to make excuses to excuse myself I was finally nudged a couple of times to say something...

And then it hit me...

This was the perfect opportunity for one of my "experiments" (Sphinx once called me a mad scientist... that's proabably the best two word assesement of me I have ever heard). So I took in the poem "The Thorn"...by William Wordsworth.. it was a stupendous hit... wow... a Wordsworth nobody had heard before (except that guy who claims he has read EVERYTHING... there is always a guy like that everywhere isn't it?). People couldn't stop talking about it....wow... just brilliant... the very pinnacle of his romanticism.... the very epitome of his love affair with nature... the brilliant dichotomy of beauty and horror... the pleasures in pain... or is it all metaphorical....
The conversation flowed like the cheap coffee, out of the canteen and into the coffee shop and went on till the wee hours of the afternoon. Only rush hour scared people enough to finally leave.

That's the last Poetry Club meeting I EVER attended.

Well.... the fact of the matter is that "the thorn" is one of the worst poems Wordsworth has ever written. Infact it is one of the worst poems in the entire english literature. It is a shining example of how NOT to write a poem...

Hmmm... interesting isn't it?

So here it is... your weapon... your litmus paper for pretentious pseudo-intellectual poetry phillic bengalis... Wordsworth's ... "The Thorn"

2006-02-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

Went on a commando mission today... not just wearing pants without undies (although that may or may not have also applied)... I mean real commando.

But first the background...

My friend Kenyan/Gujrati friend Nikhil goes to a disco a few months ago on a Saturday night. There he meets single, attractive, 2nd/3rd generation Indian girl Nadiya. They hit off. Have a few drinks. Go to his house for... coffee. Next morning.. she's still there... so they have breakfast... which turns into lunch then more drinks, dinner and more... coffee. Following Monday, Tuesday we see Nikhil walking looking really pleased. Positvely glowing. Thursday... he just looks like somebody tried to teach him Hebrew....
"Guys. She hasn't left my house since Saturday. I don't get it. I mean... I hardly know her... I thought we were just having fun. But she isn't leaving. She didn't have clothes to wear, so she was wearing mine. Yesterday, she actually went somewhere and I thought I had rid of her. But she came back before dinner with a bag full of clothes. I don;t know what's going on."

Then things got really interesting.....

Nikhil, is fairly attractive and decently well off. Which is why he doesn't live on campus but rents out a house with a friend. So it's easier for him to have lady friends over once in a while. That's what a bachelor pad is for after all. But this female was just moving in.... no need to ask him... no need to date or anything... they spend one night together and she never leaves. This has got to be really weird. In the beginning Nikhil doesn't even really notice. It's just like she is there a lot of the time. He goes home, she's there. He leaves in the mornign she's there. And all that... coffee had clouded his perception.

But things became serious when she started moving her own stuff in... a toothbrush... a soft toy...a pillow... makeup....Everyday Nikhil would go home and find some new belonging of her in his house.

Then his flatmate dropped the bomb. He wasn't willing to share the place with 3 people especially when only 2 people paid the rent and did all the work. So he just packed and moved out. And that was just perfect for Nadiya. Next day she moves into his room, and fills it with ehr stuff. Including an exercise bike!

Now things are getting out of hand. Nikhil is paying twice the rent, and twice everything. She never peels off a bill.

So he does the brave and honourable thing. He breaks up with her. Only problem is.. he can't... she just won't let him. He tries in every way possible to tell her that it's over... but she still jsut doesn't go anywhere... standard line is "Oh come on... don't be silly... we'll work on it...you want coffee"

By now it's exam time. So Nikhil can't be bothered with this anymore. He just tries to concentrate and pass. Spends like 16 hours a day at the library because he is afraid to go back home. After the exams, he just packs up and leaves for Kenya, hoping the three months break from her will just sort things out automatically.

Except.. it doesn't. Now Tom and I and a couple of his friends did what most honourable friends would do. We stalked his vampiric girlfriend. Apparently, she has had a major fallout with her parents. So they don't want her in the house unless she lives by their rules. She barely passed high school. She said she was in another uni doign bachelors... infact she was just doing some part time vocational thing. She had no money or job to speak off except maybe this and that. She had been living with friends who had already kicked her out. She had lived with an Aussie guy who had dumped her fast.

Then one day... we get the shock of our lives.... she is STILL living in Nikhil's house.... STILL!!! even though Nikhil wasn't there. Somehow she had his keys. And she would just sneak in, keep the blinds closed and do god knows what.

So we tell Nikhil and he was shocked. And asked her to fix it. Do whatever it takes... whatever it takes. And he mailed us his spare keys.
So we did. Today. A week before Nikhil is due back. We got somebody to keep an eye on the house and her for a few days. She has apparently gone out of town or something for the weekend. So we got in. And in two hours falt we packed everything she owned into boxes. I persoanlly lugged that stupid bike out. We loaded it onthe back of Tom's uncles truck and drove it over to her parents house. Somebody kept an eye on them so that we showed up the moment they were out at the shops. So we dumped the whole load of crap on their doorstep. Scrawled a note saying "Nadiya's stuff. She will pick it up." and just left. Then we got a locksmith and had the locks changed on the doors and windows. Upgraded to a monitored burglar alarm with a different code. Now she should try getting in. Nikhil lands Friday. As soon as he does, we have got another girl, a friend of ours, who will pretend to be madly in love with him. They will be seen together everywhere (not difficult because she goes everywhere with us anyway). Infact she is going to move in and be his flatmate for a while as they pretend to be living together. And we keep up this charade and ignore her, until it blows over. Hopefully.

Are we the BESTEST friends in the world or what?

2006-02-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

Damned heat... just blew up 512MB stick of RAM...
Now I have to spend the entire weekend feeling inadequate...

I left an insidous comment on some guys blog who thought Richard Marx's "Now and Forever" and some weird Michael Jackson song had the BEST lyrics of all time.... but now I can't remember the URL so I can't check his retort....

I have a cold on a day with 40+ degrees C temperatures

Damnit! Nothing's working for me suddenly....

2006-02-10T02:31:00.000-08:00

I hate my car... it's too big and too thirsty... besides I think I am getting the short end of the stick in this "shared ownership" with my father.

Time to get something sweet and small. Like a Ford Ka or a Daihatsu Sirion.

2006-02-09T07:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the best movies/Tv shows I have seen recently... you definitely should watch....

On TV:
1) Prison Break... best piece of TV I have seen in a long time.
2) LOST - a bit convoluted... but once you get into it... there is no letting go... must must watch
3) Quentin Taratino's double episode of CSI.
4) The latest season 24... this thing just gets better
5) House - most people will like it... if you are slightly bio or just scientfically minded you'll love it...
6) Scrubs - it's just so so funny...

Movies
1) Sin-City: Director's cut (DVD)
2) Munich
3) Hostel (not a excellent movie.... probably doesn't belong in this list.. but it's just the kind of twisted bizarre trash I like once in a while)
4) Walk the line
5) The squid and the whale (must)
6) Syriana
7) Good night and good luck (must must)
8) Capote..

2006-02-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

this is probably the worst joke I have heard..... in a very long time...

Q: You know how they call that useless piece of skin around a penis, the foreskin. Then what do they call the useless piece of flesh around a vagina.
A: A woman.

I know.. I know...

2006-02-09T00:29:00.000-08:00

The countdowns begun... less than 36 hours before they are gone ... the mother and the tyke... off to India...
Ah freedom at last... I tried to bring the ticket forward... but... airlines was too damn inflexible.

I am not sure how this will work though. We (My dad and I) are not to tell anybody that my mother's gone to India. Because then everybody will insist on giving us cooked food and invite us over (u s the poor destitutes)... and then when my mother returns she will have to "pay them back" by cooking for them... So we have to keep this a secret... But she doesn't return till the 14th of April... and I have a feeling people are going to suspect something when we keep telling them that she is in the shower for the next two months.
Hmmm... if you don't hear from me for a while it's probably because my dad and I are in jail for murdering my brother and mother and drowning their bodies and the Swan river.

2006-02-08T04:23:00.000-08:00

It's weird how people don't pick me for an Indian. They don't even pick me for a Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi. Nope. In the past I have been mistaken as an Indonesian, Polynesian, Cambodian, African, Egyptian, Torres Strait Islander, Maori and a Chinese-African mix (political incorrect term- chegro).
What's even weirder is that other Indians don't pick me as an Indian.

For example...
Today while riding on the bus, an obviously North Indian family of four bustle in. Mom, dad and boy about 8 and a girl about 6. The bus was crowded so mummy daddy and the boy take a seat a couple of rows behind me. The little girl sits next to me. And immediately starts talking about who I am, where I'm going, that she'd just been to zoo, the snakes were really scary and so on... cute little girl... so I patronise her asking polite questions and smiling a lot. Couple of stops later, about 50% of the bus empties at the interchange. Suddenly Papa calls out from behind... in Hindi.
"Poonam beti. Idhar chali ao. Seat khali ho giya."

"Nahi papa. Mein thik hoon" she replies back indignantly.

"Nahi nahi. Abhi idhar ayo." papa's getting pretty mad.

"Kiu?". Spirited little girl isn't she?

"Kiu ki, timhare pas jo byatha hai. Woh bahut bura admi hain. Abhi idhar a!"

Hmmm.....

2006-02-06T02:41:00.000-08:00

blogger's just gpne utterly stupid.....

2006-02-06T02:35:00.000-08:00

Now people tell me that I speak ill of my mother too often. That I am unfair to her. I should lighten up and give her a break.

Well… allow me to describe to you the events surrounding this year’s Saraswati Pujo and then I’ll let you be the judge.

Now, as Bengali’s in a foreign land, most people are gripped by an insatiable urge to “associate”. Therefore they formed a Bengali Association in the godforsaken town. And they hold certain religious/cultural festivities throughout the year.

Q: What would you get if you put 5 bengalis on a deserted island and came back 3 years later.

A: 2 durga pujas.

Things aren’t better here. The 70 strong community of Bengalis are constantly at each other’s throats. The undercurrents of years of suppressed jealousy and hatred are just deadly. We’ve been here three years and have things pretty much worked out by now.

The thing is, Saraswati Pujo day is when the old Governing Committee steps down and a new committee is formed. Os after worshipping the god of knowledge, everybody just jumps for each other’s jugular.

It’s war out there. Make no mistake. Now if you have any brains you stay as far away as possible. Otherwise you take a side and you fight it out.

As a result, there is an immense lack of willing volunteers to fill up the executive positions in the committee. The only place to be in a mud-fight is far far away. Usually it ends up with one of the two alpha males being elected presidents and his sycophants filling up the other roles.

Now my mother….

Until now we have managed to tread something of a middle line. Smile. Wave. Talk to everybody. And nobody bothers with you. But as loud and opinionated people are often mistaken to be efficient, so the other Bengalis have decided that my mother would be a perfect person to take up atleast one of the roles on the committee, if not the main one. It would be a blatant lie if I were to say my mother was completely disinterested in that proposition. A number of times I have heard her begin sentences with “If I ran this Association…”. But she wasn’t really given a chance to deny that. My dad and I put our foot down. Saying we would have nothing to do with it if she went through. The biggest threat of all, we refused to drive her to the meetings. So she was dissuaded.

But how to avoid this. If we go to the Pujo she would be almost certainly forced and coerced into it. So we decide not to go. But what’s to be the excuse? Now normal people would have said “I have a headache”, but the beacon of truth and honesty that is my mother decided to schedule a long due colonoscopy on the day before. Imagine that (actually don’t.. it’s kinda disgusting). Obviously she would be too unwell to attend the next day. Now this she tells everybody and sympathy just keeps pouring in. With mumbled questions as to why this sudden examination. Did someone say cancer.

Now the hospital calls her up the day before the colonoscopy and cancels it. Uh oh! What to do now? A new excuse. Hell no! This is just too good to let pass. So she plays along telling everybody that she is still having the colonoscopy. Except her close friends ofcourse. Now I was there on Friday morning. The first phone call comes in.

“Hello. Is your mother at the hospital?”

Damn….. “Err.. I dunno… I think she’s in the bathroom.” Now she comes out mouthing “who? Who?”

“Mrs. Pal” I say.

“I’m at the hospital”.. she mouths

“Err… I thought she was in the bathroom… but actually she’s at the hospital. My mistake”….

Next call. “Is your mother there?”… “No.. at hospital.”… “Really? But a little birdy told me she was home.”

Crap! Now what… Run to mom.. “Mrs. Rudra… Mrs. Rudra”…. She grabs… “Hiiiiiiiiiii…. How’s things?”

At this point I just ran out of the house.

At 7 pm… a car suddenly pulls up into the driveway…. 5 large ladies and one large flower bouquet pour out. Headed by none other than Mrs. Pal… and there’s my mother… on the front lawn…. Sitting on her supposedly examined bottom tending to the rose bushes….

Hmmmm….

Anyway…. The story goes that they tried to do the test but found there were “other complications”. So they postponed it and gave her medicines. So she still can’t go to Saraswati Pujo.

So we didn’t go. The forced election was averted. But currently there are three stories regarding my mother’s colonoscopy doing the rounds.

1) She didn’t go. It was cancelled.

2) She went and got it done.

3) She went, but the doctor cancelled it and sent her home with medication.

Only a matter of time until two of these stories cross paths. That’s when the fun will really start.

2006-02-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

The blog roll has been due for an update for a while... I was having this conversation with ANc the other day... we were telling ourselves that Srin must get like a million hits a day.... I mean she writes two lines piffle and 3 hours later it has 6 comments on it. Just Fascinating! But to that Anc pointed out that it may not just because of her immense social magnetism (althought I insist that is a factor) but more so because of her enormous blogroll. Good point. Apparently people visit her blog for the blog roll, treating it like a blog portal, a page of bookmarks. Come for the links, stay for the posts. But that's just brilliant. Because all this traffic, the linking and backlinking makes her google rank rise with leaps and bounds. So. Now I am determined to increase my blog roll too. In an effort to increase my google rank. Why do I need to increase my rank? I really don't know. An ego thing. A man thing. Spitting contests, drinking contests... something along those lines.

So I added a few more people. As always, I can't do things without preamble. So here goes. Please keep an open mind. It's not that hard you know......

Anc: I have been meaning to add him for a while. Top bloke ofcourse. Met him once. Not as geeky as you would expect from someone that hung up on LOTR. No buck teeth or weird headgear. Nope. Not at all a weirdo... well maybe just a little...ina good way

Absolutist: Another decent chap. Has good taste in music. Probably studies physics or something. Nice combination. The whole science and culture thing. Kinda like me (except I don't have the culture). Good guy. But you better not have anything he wants.. or he will drive you nuts asking for it.

J.A.P: Now... there really isn't much I can tell you about this guy that you probably haven't read in like 50 other blogs this month. Old school. A true heavyweight of Indian Blogsphere (or blogworld or whatever it is you ppl are calling it today). I truly admire the quality of his posts. They are always the right size, the right topics with the right amount of pictures. No wonder everybody read em. Points to be taken people... pay attention. Does have a endency to launch into poetic monolgues once ina while.... but then which bengali man doesn't?

"sen"sational - is anything but... nah ... just kidding. 17-18 yr old female... know nothing abt her so shouldn't comment. Posts a lot abt her friends and her life. Good fun to read once in a while to know what makes 17-18yr old girls tick...

eve's lungs - Rarely posts, understandably so... because unlike the rest of us she actually HAS a real life. But when she does, it's quality. It's good to read slightly more mature people's blogs once in a while (as with J.A.P.). You get a different perspective. The binds of normal society would usually prevent much casual interaction with people like her and JAP for us (atleast me)... but blogs somehow change that...Strange coincidence.. her daughter and she picked the exact same template.

Ray-deo: Posts quizzes from time to time. The kind of quizzes I like actually. Not impossible, not stuff you don't have a clue about, but it's just that it'll puzzle you. And when you hear the answers, you go "ahhhh damn! I knew that". Once upon a time I had tried my hand at quizzing. Unfortunately, I wasn't too good at gluing my lips to the quiz in-charge teacher's behind, unlike some individuals. SO I gave that up and moved on to things I am better at.... like criticizing people. But yeah... once ina while it's good to log on to ray-deo and take the old trivia bucket for a spin to see if it still got it.

2006-02-05T02:55:00.000-08:00

So this is the deal... I installed the new template...Made one post... and then I think I should add a little counter... and that's it. The entire blog gets stuffed.
Now I can't make any changes to the blog at all. If I do... it saves... but then the next time I make a change, the old changes get erased and soon enough I am just back to where I started. A frozen blog. Annoyed the living daylights outta me. Apparently it's a bug in the blogger system. Sometimes if you add javascript in a certain way... it'll just go into an endless and completely consumate itself. Be warned! Learn from my mistakes.

Anyway... So I have a new blog... which is really still the old blog.
Doesn't matter if you can't remember this new address. Or if you still have a link to the old blog. It should be fine. It should just redirect you (hopefully).

THe old posts are lost. Well... their still there... but the blog isn't... so you can't see them. I COULD move them but it's really not worth the effort. There weren't any real gems in there anyway.

This is good. A fresh start. I like fresh starts. Wipe out everything... start again. This is actually the kind of start I had planned for my old blog... a nice fancy template, with fancy little gimmicks, a long post. yeah. Nice.

It's weird though. My blog actually exceeded all my expectations. I had planned on making about 5 posts... but ended up about 60 more than that. Had planned on getting about 3 ppl to read it.... I know I have more than that.

So... welcome to Erebus's new blog. Old sins forgiven. New sins to be comitted. No longer about revenge. Was it ever about revenge? Not sure. Srin has officially labelled my blog "the revenge blog". Which is quite unkind. But then... very much like her. I promise repercusions.

So on a balmy sunday evening.... John Coltrane playing in the background. I open my little shop of horrors.

Expect blood.

2006-02-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

so far so good.......

2006-02-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

Hope this works